Dossier « Territoires en transition environnementale » – Recomposer la mer pour devenir offshore : le projet éolien de Veulettes-sur-Mer

Abstract

This article focuses on the development of the first offshore wind farm project in France (Veulettes-sur-Mer, Seine-Maritime) from which both the French State and the industrialists expected to acquire a replicable procedure for wind power offshore development. Relying on actor-network theory and notions derived from philosophy of technology (Simondon), we follow issues related to the siting of the turbines and their connection to the grid. We describe the ways by which wind power technology develops ramifications into its social, institutional and biological milieu in order to exist. The vagaries of this offshore project testify to a strong dependence of this technology to past (onshore) modes of assemblage, yet simultaneously highlighting the multiple and circuitous routes by which the project contributes to policy learning and to changing the way in which offshore wind power policy frames the development of an offshore milieu for wind technology. This case study illustrates how a given technology and its environment engage in mutual recomposition on the occasion of technology development. It calls for renewed attention to these interdependencies at a time when marine strategic planning and offshore wind power development are entering French policy.