Alstom has opened its first offshore wind turbine production plants in Saint-Nazaire, France. On hand for an inauguration event was French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, Alstom Chairman and Managing Director Patrick Kron and Alstom Renewable Power Chairman Jérôme Pécresse. The new facilities will manufacture nacelles and generators for the Haliade 150-6MW turbines while the towers and blades will be made in the Alstom plants in Cherbourg. The plants will produce, on average, 100 machines per day and will be fully operational in early 2015. Delivery is expected to begin during the first quarter and includes 5 turbines intended for the Block Island wind farm in the U.S.

The plants in Saint-Nazaire will also be assembling the 238 offshore turbines that are planned to equip the three facilities installed by EDF, the exclusive partner of Alstom on the French market, in Saint-Nazaire, Courseulles-sur-Mer and Fécamp starting in 2017.

“The inauguration of the Saint-Nazaire facility represents a milestone in Alstom’s story and in the country’s own industrial history,” said Kron. “These new plants are France’s first offshore wind turbine production factories. Thanks to them, we shall now be in a position to serve the French market as well as to meet a growing international demand.”

The Haliade 150-6MW wind turbine is designed for a marine setting. Thanks to a rotor exceeding 150 metres in diameter, the turbine’s yield is 15% higher than that of other same-generation wind turbines according to Alstom. With 6 MW of power.

Pécresse added, “Through the construction of those new plants, Alstom is upholding its determination to be one of the leaders in a French industrial sector of excellence devoted to renewable energy, and to ensure the sustainability of a Renewable Ocean Energy industry intended to claim an early position in a global market, by involving all our partners.”