At the Floating Offshore Wind Turbines 2025 conference in Brest, a strategic shift in European offshore wind cooperation quietly took shape. It didn’t come with fanfare but with signatures — a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between BrestPort and Shannon Foynes Port Company — forming a backbone for cross-border industrial collaboration in floating wind energy.
What’s the real takeaway here? Two ports, one in Brittany, the other on Ireland’s west coast, are officially tying their futures to the wind. Literally. The Celtic Sea and Atlantic corridor, once known mainly for their fisheries and ferry routes, are now being eyed as the next frontier for Europe’s offshore renewable ambitions. The MoU isn’t just a handshake across the water; it’s a commitment to build something durable — a transnational supply chain for floating wind turbines.
Coordinated logistics, aligned infrastructure development, and streamlined deployment of components across both ports. The two sites aim to develop capabilities that go beyond their own borders. They want to become staging grounds for something much bigger — floating offshore wind farms stretching from Ireland to mainland Europe. The ports are now inviting others to join this Atlantic club.
Officials from the Irish Department of Transport and the Brittany Region didn’t mince words. They see ports as industrial muscle — not just entry points for cargo but engines of the green transition. Both governments stressed how ports like Brest and Foynes are going to do more than just move goods. They’re going to build energy.
Unsurprisingly, this announcement came during FOWT 2025, a conference that’s become the beating heart of floating offshore wind dialogue. This wasn’t a mere symbolic gesture; it was an operational roadmap. Knowledge-sharing, shared infrastructure planning, and synchronized timelines are all on the table.
Christophe Chabert, CEO of BrestPort, didn’t downplay the moment. “This partnership is a vital link,” he said, calling the MoU a key milestone. He stressed the importance of turning ports into launchpads for Europe’s floating wind infrastructure.
Pat Keating, CEO of Shannon Foynes Port Company, was equally clear-eyed. He said the agreement showed just how valuable Franco-Irish collaboration can be. “It’s about more than national goals,” he said. “It’s about European energy security.”
This isn’t happening in a vacuum. France and Ireland are both aggressively investing in offshore wind, with floating platforms seen as the answer to deeper waters where fixed-bottom turbines can’t go. But the challenge has always been scale — and scale needs infrastructure.
BrestPort brings to the table a 40-hectare terminal already geared toward floating wind. Shannon Foynes Port Company, for its part, sits on a deep-water estuary with direct Atlantic access. Both ports have been positioning themselves for this kind of partnership for years.
The Atlantic corridor is no longer just a stretch of open sea. It’s becoming a logistics channel, a hub of industrial opportunity, and potentially, a linchpin in Europe’s energy transformation. But with floating wind still in its early commercial stages, partnerships like this one will likely make or break the sector’s momentum.
