French offshore wind specialist BW Ideol Projects has acquired a 15% stake in the Méditerranée Grand Large floating offshore wind farm, which is under construction off the coast of Provence.

The project is being developed by Eoliennes Méditerranée Grand Large, which is controlled by EDF Power Solutions and Maple Power – the latter a joint venture between Canadian entities CPP Investments and Enbridge. BW Ideol Projects is a subsidiary of BW Ideol and Ademe Investissement, focused on the development of floating offshore wind.

The 15% equity investment builds on several years of collaboration among BW Ideol, EDF Power Solutions, and Maple Power teams in the study of floating foundations to respond to offshore wind tenders in France.

The transaction is expected to strengthen the capabilities of the Méditerranée Grand Large project, which will benefit from solid technological expertise for the development of the first commercial scale floating wind project in the Mediterranean Sea. EDF Power Solutions and Maple Power will choose the floater technology before the start of the project's construction.

Awarded under the Sixth Offshore Wind Tender in December 2024, the offshore wind farm is located 25 kilometres off the French Mediterranean coast. With a capacity of approximately 250 megawatts, the project is expected to supply the equivalent of the annual electricity consumption of nearly 450,000 people.

EDF Power Solutions, together with Maple Power and its shareholders, has already developed and commissioned France's first offshore wind farm off the coast of Saint-Nazaire with a capacity of 480MW, the Fécamp ( 500MW ) offshore wind farm, and the Provence-Grand-Large floating offshore pilot project ( 25MW ). They are also building the 450MW Calvados offshore wind farm, the 600MW Dunkirk offshore wind farm, and the 1-gigawatt Manche Normandie.

BW Ideol is already a shareholder in the 30MW EolMed project in the Mediterranean and the 960MW Buchan project in Scotland, as well as the owner and operator of the Floatgen Demonstrator, which has been in service since 2018 off the coast of Le Croisic.