Fecamp offshore met mast

The Fecamp offshore met mast

In 2023, France Energies Marines acquired the measurement mast located at the southern edge of the Fécamp offshore wind farm, 13 km from the coast. Resting on a gravity foundation and rising 40 metres above sea level, this infrastructure is the first French offshore research and innovation platform dedicated to offshore wind energy. It is particularly suited for the deployment of innovative instrumentation, several of which are already installed:

• A MOTUS radiotelemetry station, photo traps, and microphones for monitoring flying fauna.
• An acoustic telemetry network for monitoring fish and crustaceans.
• Anemometers, a weather station, and a profiling lidar for measuring wind parameters.
• Accelerometers and a stereoscopic video capture system for studying the hydrodynamic forces of waves on the structure.

Our service offering

France Energies Marines Institute offers a unique service for floating offshore wind energy stakeholders and offshore-related companies. This service includes access to the Fécamp mast as well as support from the Institute’s experts for the testing, development, and validation of demonstrators in real conditions.

The mast is particularly suited for the technological validation of innovative products (data capture and aggregation, telemetry and transmission, avian fauna detection solutions, drones, ROVs, etc.). It allows for the testing and validation of these technologies in real conditions, from demonstrators to product validation, both above and below the water surface.

The experts at France Energies Marines are also able to support companies in their prototype and product validation process by providing reference data, test specification assistance, and handling data collection, analysis, and processing.

Why choose us?

The scarcity of representative infrastructures dedicated to offshore testing represents a major barrier to the validation of prototypes and products, which is a crucial step towards market entry.

• Choosing France Energies Marines means selecting an experienced partner to help you overcome the main obstacles to commercialising your technologies and products in the offshore wind sector. We understand the specific requirements of technological development for this industry, such as investment risk issues and the crucial importance of reliability and cost control.
• Our experts, thanks to their extensive experience, are able to support companies aiming to develop their footprint within the offshore wind market.
  The mast offers the opportunity to adapt services and products from the onshore wind sector or other industries to the offshore wind context. Explore new applications and develop your expertise.
• Thanks to our policy of pooling test campaigns, we offer optimised rates that significantly reduce the costs associated with offshore operations.

Our resources and experts

France Energies Marines has three complementary teams with operational and scientific expertise, consisting of more than 10 experts, who are able to bring their know-how to the Fécamp mast.

Offshore Operations Team

The “Offshore Operations” team specialises in the deployment of biological and physical sensors, as well as the acquisition of hydrographic and oceanographic data. They oversee all offshore campaigns, covering preparation, execution, and operation monitoring. The team excels in managing large volumes of data, deploying, operating, and maintaining measurement devices, whether autonomous or integrated into structures such as buoys, measurement masts, wind turbines, and lighthouses, thus ensuring the accuracy and reliability of data collected in the marine environment.

Environment and Instrumentation Team

The “Environment and Instrumentation” team studies the environmental impacts of offshore wind energy on the environment and human activities across different ecosystem compartments (benthos, fish, birds, marine mammals, etc.). The team implements, defines when necessary, and uses innovative methods such as acoustic telemetry, environmental DNA, algorithm development, and data analysis, including those based on machine learning techniques.

Engineering Team

The “Engineering” team stands out for its expertise in design, sizing, and in-service monitoring, as well as its in-depth knowledge of the offshore wind market and its innovation needs. It excels in defining and managing multidisciplinary and innovative projects, ensuring technical oversight and conducting studies. The team focuses on characterisation methods and both numerical and physical modelling to address issues related to in-service monitoring, operations, and maintenance, as well as data processing using machine learning methods.

The reference equipment available on the Fecamp mast:

Sound detection equipment: Four acoustic recorders are installed on the mast platform and at 35m on the lattice. Their purpose is to detect birds and bats in the vicinity of the mast. France Energies Marines retrieves the SD cards from the recorders approximately every three months to analyse the collected data.

Hydrophone equipment: An F-POD and a hydrophone detect the presence of marine mammals and collect information on their behaviour.

360° video capture equipment: Twelve 360°/4K cameras are installed to capture in real time the presence of birds flying around the Fécamp mast and marine mammals when they surface to breathe.

MOTUS antenna equipment: A MOTUS station has been installed on the mast, enabling the detection of birds and bats fitted with radio transmitters. This is the first time such an antenna has been deployed in mainland France. When coupled with other antennas along the coasts of the English Channel and the North Sea, it will allow the tracking of bird migrations near offshore wind farms.

Acoustic telemetry receiver equipment and species tagging with acoustic transmitters: Four acoustic recorders have been deployed to identify bird and bat species present at sea, particularly during migration periods. These devices are part of a large network of recorders set up by the National Museum of Natural History across the entire Atlantic arc as part of the MIGRATLANE programme.