Sabella (company)
Sabella won the this in partnership with Ifremer, Veolia Environnement and Bureau Veritas, enabling the project to be partly financed by Investissements d'Avenir.
[3] In January 2021, Sabella acquired the technologies developed by General Electric as GE Renewable Energy, including by Rolls Royce, Alstom, and Tidal Generation Ltd (TGL).
The blades are carbon fibre and were constructed by CDK Technologies, a shipyard for offshore racing boats based in Port-la-Forêt in Finistère.
The turbine was installed on 25 June 2015 in the Passage du Fromveur,[10] between the island of Ushant and the Molène archipeligo, at a depth of 55 metres (180 ft).
It was connected to the Enedis de Ouessant power grid on 5 November 2015 at 23:00,[9] making it the first grid-connected tidal stream turbine in France.
This included extensive monitoring and instrumentation to have feedback on production, performance, resistance, environmental impact, social acceptance, etc.
The project partners included Veolia Environnement for the life-cycle analysis of the turbine, Ifremer for underwater acoustics and the ageing of materials in the marine environment, and Bureau Veritas for the validation of the mechanical and manufacturing studies with an objective of future certification.
They encrypted access to communications and demanded a ransom of 4,000 dollars for the decryption key, although they were not successful; the terminal was changed and additional security measures installed.
[19] Due to the very low speed of rotation of its blades (10 to 15 revolutions per minute), the turbine presents little danger to underwater fauna and flora.
Finally, as the Sabella water turbine is placed on the seabed on a gravity foundation, no drilling is therefore carried out in the soil.
In January 2013, an official of the group of environmentalists and independents of Ushant called for the "faster" establishment of tidal turbines, to secure the island's power supply.
In June 2012, Sabella signed a partnership agreement with Eole Génération, a subsidiary of GDF Suez that has since become ENGIE Futures Energies.
Sabella negotiated a contract for six tidal turbines with a Filipino developer, and hopes to reduce the cost of its machines from 7 down to 4 million euro.
In June 2021, Sabella signed a partnership agreement with the Scottish company Nova Innovation to develop tidal projects in France and the United Kingdom.
[22] A call for expressions of interest was published by ADEME on 1 October 2013 for the installation of such pilot farms in the Fromveur and Raz Blanchard.
In the longer term, Sabella hoped to develop commercial tidal farms, specifically at Fromveur, but also elsewhere in France, Europe and the world.
