• The Spanish group Iberdrola is currently building the offshore wind farm in the bay of Saint-Brieuc.

  • As provided for in the call for tenders, the energy giant will also financially support projects in Brittany.

  • The aid will mainly go to projects related to energy, the sea or the environment.

It is a global energy giant which achieved a turnover of 37.9 billion euros in the first nine months of the year.

Established in some forty countries, where it employs nearly 40,000 employees, the Spanish group Iberdrola is also well present in France since it supplies electricity to around 500,000 customers.

Via its subsidiary Ailes Marines, the Spanish multinational is also in charge of the construction site of the wind farm in the bay of Saint-Brieuc.

By the end of 2023, 62 wind turbines will be commissioned at sea to produce the equivalent of the annual electricity consumption of 835,000 inhabitants.

At the same time, Iberdrola is also preparing to take out the checkbook to finance projects in Brittany through a fund presented on Tuesday at the region's headquarters in Rennes.

Called IBreizh, this program of ten million euros, however, raises questions.

In exchange for a large sum of money, does the Spanish giant thus buy "silence", as Isabelle Le Callenec, leader of the right and center at the regional council, asserted in early October?

Or is it a compensatory measure to remedy the possible impacts of the wind farm on biodiversity in the bay of Saint-Brieuc?

Support for the fishing sector, opposed to the wind farm

Neither, according to Loïg Chesnais-Girard, socialist president of the Brittany region.

“This financial participation in the development of the territory was planned from the outset in the call for tenders as for any offshore wind project, he says.

But in Brittany, for the sake of transparency, we have chosen to sign a partnership with Ailes Marines in order to target aid to projects that seem to us to be priorities.

Daniel Cueff, its vice-president in charge of the sea, moreover assures that there is "nothing to compensate for" because the wind farm under construction "has no negative impact on the resource and the biodiversity.

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Signed for an initial period of seven years, the IBreizh program will primarily irrigate the Côtes-d'Armor department where the future wind farm is located.

The money paid by Iberdrola will be used in particular to finance projects related to fishing and aquaculture, environmental protection and biodiversity or tourist development.

Two first projects are already in the pipeline: one with the Breizh Biodiv foundation, which aims to accelerate the ecological transition in Brittany, and the other with the regional shellfish farming committee.

It now remains to be seen how Iberdrola will succeed in collaborating with the fishermen of the bay of Saint-Brieuc, who have always opposed the wind farm.

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  • Environment

  • Energy

  • Wind turbine

  • Sea

  • Funding

  • Brittany

  • Ecology

  • Planet