IFREMER Testing Station at Sainte-Anne-du-Portzic

The in-situ testing station at Sainte-Anne-du-Portzic is located at the mouth of the Bay of Brest, at the foot of the IFREMER campus. It is used for at-sea tests of various instruments and technological developments, including testing of marine renewable energy prototypes, environmental monitoring, and materials performance studies. This experimental site is part of the Theorem research infrastructure which brings together the hydrodynamic and ocean engineering testing resources of Ifremer, the Ecole Central de Nantes and the Gustave Eiffel University.

The site is intended for testing intermediate-scale prototypes of marine energy devices, an important step between tests in basins and full-scale prototypes. The site has an instrumented test platform, with easy access to the sea, allowing for close-to-real conditions and benefiting from the experience of IFREMER teams. Onsite instrumentation provide continuous measurements of environmental conditions (swell, wind, current) and physico-chemical parameters, for the qualification of test conditions, and even energy production and stresses on the structure.

Key site characteristics:

20 m depth to immerse equipment.
7 m tidal range at high tides.
1.75 m/s maximum tidal current.
2 m maximum significant swell height.

Site Manager

French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea

Additional Information

Test Site Website

Device Status

Is the test site actively testing or in planning (active)? Or is it permanently closed for business (inactive)?

Active

Energy Resource

Wave

Duration

January 2013 - Ongoing

Max Load Capacity

The maximum amount of electricity that can be accommodated at the test site, based on cable capacity.

0.01 MW

Grid Connectivity

Not Grid Connected

Number of Berths

1

Waterbody

Sainte Anne du Portzic, Bay of Brest, France

Site Characteristics

Geographic characterization for the test site location:

Open Ocean: Main body of ocean, not enclosed or partially enclosed by land
Coastal: Open water near the coast, spanning between land and shelf boundary
Enclosed Bay: water that is partially surrounded by land, with a mouth open to larger water
Constricted Channel: A channel where water flows quickly due to narrowing by the land
River: Water flowing from land towards a larger body of water

Enclosed Bay

Country

France

Environmental Details

Tethys Metadata

Last Modified

15 January 2025

This Test Site has the following MRE Devices

Citation Formats

“IFREMER Testing Station at Sainte-Anne-du-Portzic.” Marine Energy Projects Database: Test Sites, PRIMRE, United States Department of Energy, https://openei.org/wiki/PRIMRE/Databases/Projects_Database/Test_Sites/IFREMER_Testing_Station_at_Sainte-Anne-du-Portzic. Accessed <day> <monthRoman> <year>.

Marine Energy Projects Database: Test Sites. <year>. "IFREMER Testing Station at Sainte-Anne-du-Portzic." Accessed <monthRoman> <day>, <year>. https://openei.org/wiki/PRIMRE/Databases/Projects_Database/Test_Sites/IFREMER_Testing_Station_at_Sainte-Anne-du-Portzic.