The offshore site for testing the floating vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) to be developed during the INdustrialization setup of a FLoating Offshore Wind turbine project (INFLOW) has been approved and fully authorized by the responsible prefecture of the Bouches-du-Rhône department.
The test site situated in the Mediterranean Sea 5 kilometres off the coast at Port-Saint-Louis-du-Rhône can support two full scale VAWTs and will be operated by MISTRAL, a joint venture of the INFLOW consortium partners EDF Energies Nouvelles and Nenuphar. It will be the world’s first offshore test site with multiple floating wind turbines. Directed by French engineering company Technip and funded by the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme, the main target of INFLOW is to optimize the existing onshore VAWT prototype produced by its predecessor projects VERTIFLOAT and VERTIWIND and to manage all aspects required to initiate a viable industrialisation phase.
