Operations Other

In its first complete calendar year of operation following the November 2022 commercial operations declaration, the Saint-Nazaire offshore wind farm produced approximately 1.5 TWh of electricity from its 80 GE Haliade 150-6MW turbines, equivalent to a load factor in the region of 35-36% against the project's 480 MW installed capacity and consistent with the developer's pre-construction yield expectations of around 1.7 TWh per year. Output exhibited the seasonal profile typical of North-Atlantic offshore wind, peaking in winter months (January 2023 monthly output exceeded 180 GWh, with November 2023 around 800 GWh on a year-to-date cumulative basis) and falling in summer (around 64 GWh in June 2023). Production met the operator's first-year expectations and supplied the equivalent of around 20% of the Loire-Atlantique département's annual electricity consumption, covering the consumption of about 700,000 people. The 2023 result was reported by EDF Renewables (now EDF power solutions), Enbridge and CPP Investments in subsequent operational communications, with EDF's offshore wind asset-management director later characterising the year as the baseline against which subsequent operating-year performance would be measured. The annual production figure precedes the December 2023 offshore substation transformer fault that constrained the start of 2024 output.