Multi-Dimensional Analysis of Offshore Wind Industry: The Case of French Wind Farms

The development of the offshore wind industry faces a number of organizational and economic hurdles, often strong societal resistance and the instability of public policies, thus drawing interest from academics who have analyzed this process from multiple viewpoints. This body of knowledge has served as the basis for a study aiming at characterizing France’s first three offshore wind farm projects, which finally reached the energy production stage after over ten years of development. Results show that although this development has been the subject of atypically strong social opposition, the projects’ features are quite close to those highlighted by the literature.