Abstract
In today’s global context, climate change is one of the most pressing issues (Banno and Kuriyama, 2014). In response, many countries have set goals to reduce their ecological impact, such as France, which is seeking to reduce its production of CO2 emissions (Paris Agreements - 2015). In recent years, to reduce these emissions, alternatives to fossil fuels have been sought. One renewable energy source is wind power, which produces energy from the wind via wind turbines.
Onshore wind farms have been in France since the early 1990s, and in recent years a new type of wind farm has been gaining ground in Europe: offshore wind farms. At sea, the wind is more stable and often more intense, and it enables the deployment of larger turbines. The potential wind resource in Europe is large (34 000 TWh/year, IFPEN), so the development of offshore wind farms is currently in expansion. In France, there are three operational offshore wind farms located in Saint-Brieuc (Côtes d’Armor), Fécamp (Seine Maritime), and SaintNazaire (Loire Atlantique) (Fig. 2). Five offshore wind farms (commercial or pilot sites) are under construction: 2 in the English Channel, one in the Atlantic Ocean, and 3 in the Mediterranean Sea. Additionally, 6 other wind farms are planned in these three coastal regions.
However, with a lifespan of 40 years (Poppeschi et al., 2024), climate change could have important impacts on offshore wind farms. Currently, climate change monitoring is being conducted by scientists worldwide, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) brings together these experts to compile reports and syntheses of the most recent scientific studies related to climate change (IPCC, 2023). In response to the IPCC report conclusions on climate change, a project focused on its impact on offshore wind farms was initiated by France Energies Marines, called the 2C NOW project, and this study is part of the 2C NOW project. The aim of 2C NOW is to understand the impacts of climate change on wind energy production, the longevity of wind turbine structures, and the design of all the elements of an offshore wind farm. One of the initial tasks of this project is to review the state of the art concerning current statistics and trends in atmospheric and hydrodynamic phenomena affecting the farms (e.g. wind, waves and water levels), and the impacts of climate change on their future evolution.