• Renewable energy

High voltage success at Saint-Brieuc

EDS HV, working as part of James Fisher Renewables, has won a significant high voltage safety-management commissioning contract for Saint-Brieuc - Brittany’s first large-scale offshore wind farm. 

Although the EDS team has previously worked with the customer, Iberdrola, on the development of East Anglia ONE offshore wind farm in the North Sea, this contract marks the first move into France and consolidates the James Fisher group’s leading position in the renewables field.

Leveraging its considerable experience of energising wind farms safely and efficiently, EDS will help ensure a smooth transition from commissioning through to the operations and maintenance phase at Saint-Brieuc which will feature 62 turbines each set 1 km apart covering 75 square km, at a site 16km off the French coast. 

Ryan Calvert, strategy, sales and commercial director at EDS explains the background to this win:

‘We have been building the ability to provide a complete “turnkey” management service for the high voltage aspect of wind farm construction and we can now offer a trusted and expert package which is unparalleled in the market,’ he says. 

‘Although traditionally, wind farm operators had kept this expertise inhouse, increasingly large companies such as Iberdrola have been looking to outsource the management of the entire high voltage service.’

‘With full project management, highly trained teams and 24/7 remote control centre support throughout construction, we can provide exactly what Iberdrola needs for Saint-Brieuc, and for their proposed windfarms elsewhere in the world.’

‘We are very fortunate to have built a good relationship with Iberdrola and to have created our business in such a way that we are able to provide exactly what this customer was looking for.’

Planning work on Saint-Brieuc began earlier in 2021, but the EDS involvement is expected to ramp up through 2022 ahead of the wind farm becoming fully operational in 2023. 

‘As leaders in the provision of niche high voltage services we continue to develop and lead the thinking on the HV safety rules which now apply throughout Europe,’ Ryan adds, ‘we work hard to examine local regulations wherever in the world we are operating to ensure our customer’s application is compliant.’

JF Renewables has strengthened its leadership team with the appointment of Wayne Mulhall as managing director. Wayne is already managing director of EDS HV, and his newly expanded role will ensure a holistic approach to activity in the renewables market across the business.