Moving Offshore, Recomposing the Sea: Wind Power in Veulettes-sur-mer (France)
Résumé
This communication focuses on the development of the first offshore wind project in France (Veulettes-sur-Mer, Seine-Maritime), from which both the French state and the industrialists expected to learn a replicable procedure for offshore development in wind power. But ten years after the beginning of the project, still no one windturbine is sited in the sea. Relying on actor-network theory and notions derived from philosophy of technology (Gilbert Simondon), we follow issues related to the siting of the turbines and their connection to the grid. We describe the ways and experimental procedures through which wind power technology develops ramifications (social, institutional, biological) into its environment in order to exist. The case study illustrates how a technology and its environment engage into mutual recomposition at the occasion of technology development. It calls for renewed attention to these interdependencies as marine strategic planning and offshore wind power development are entering French policy. It also underlines the ability of the windpower developers and their lobby to reframe the French offshore windpower policy at the occasion of a great french national debate on environmental policies ("Grenelle de l'environnement").