Description
The Ifremer test site in Sainte-Anne du Portzic is located on the North side of the Brest Strait, that links the Altantic Ocean in the west to the bay of Brest in the East. It has been used for more than 30 years for offshore testing of various instruments and technical developments, and is well suited for Marine Renewable Energy (MRE) intermediate scale prototype and/or subsystems testing and validation at TRL 5-6, at the transition between the laboratory and the full-scale demonstration in the real environment.
The Ifremer test site in Sainte-Anne du Portzic is part of the THeoREM Research Infrastructure for marine engineering research, where it is complementary with the other facilities of the network, such as waves and current tanks, mechanical test benches and the SEM-REV offshore test site. It is also part of the Carnot MERS Institute.
Location
The test site is placed in the Brest strait open to the Iroise sea in the west and to the Brest bay in the East. With an area of 250m x 150m, it is located along the south-western side of the Sainte-Anne harbour dike. It can be accessed from the dyke or by boat from the port of Brest, 6 km away.
Licensing Information
Ifremer get a permanent authorization from the French authorities to manage the test site of Sainte-Anne du Portzic.
Project Progress
The Ifremer test site in Sainte-Anne du Portzic is used since 1970 for long-term physical, chemical and biological monitoring of the sea water in the Brest bay. It is also used to test the ageing of materials in sea water and has been historically used to develop aquaculture nets and oceanographic sensors. Since 2000, the COAST-HF MAREL Iroise data buoy continuously monitors at high frequency the temperature, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, in vivo fluorescence, turbidity, solar radiation and pH.
Marine Renewable Energy prototypes are tested in the Ifremer test site in Sainte-Anne du Portzic since 2013, with the trials of the PMH and PH4S wave energy buoys in partnership with Geps Techno, followed by the Eolink concept of floating offshore wind turbine in 2018. More recently, the trials of the WindQuest vertical-axis wind turbine developed by Hydroquest began in 2021, the DIKWE wave energy converter developed with Legendre and Geps Techno started in 2022 and the wave energy converter from Seaturns is tested since 2023.
Key Environmental Issues
The site is used as a seawater property monitoring station since 1998 by the SOMLIT and COAST-HF networks. It is an international reference, as it is one of the oldest observation stations of the French coast.
A colony of Zostera Marina grows in the test site seabed. Zostera beds are important for sediment deposition, substrate stabilization, and as nursery grounds for many species of economically important fish and shellfish.
Papers, Reports, Research Studies
- Metocean conditions at the Ifremer in situ test site in Brest
- Interannual variability of the initiation of the phytoplankton growing period in two French coastal ecosystems
- Potential for acoustic masking due to shipping noise in the European lobster (Homarus gammarus)
- Experimental Offshore Floating Wind Turbine Prototype and Numerical Analysis During Harsh and Production Events
- National observation infrastructure: an example of a fixed-platforms network along the French coast: COAST HF
- Influence of environmental and anthropogenic factors on the composition, concentration and spatial distribution of microplastics: A case study of the Bay of Brest
- The annual and seasonal variability of the carbonate system in the Bay of Brest
- Iroise buoy s data from Coriolis data center as core parameter support for Brest Bay and Iroise sea studies
- LE DOARE Jacques (2019). Haliotis ESS-TECH HA 19. https://doi.org/10.17600/18000955
- Blade strain analysis from field measurements on a vertical axis wind turbine
- Inter-comparison of wave measuring equipment (in French here)
Baseline Assessment: Ifremer Test Site in Sainte-Anne-du-Portzic
| Receptor | Study Description | Design and Methods | Results | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Physical Environment, Water Quality | Water quality assessment. | Multiparameter probe sampling with oceanographic bottles. | Continuous data series since 1998. | Ongoing |
Post-Installation Monitoring: Ifremer Test Site in Sainte-Anne-du-Portzic
| Stressor | Receptor | Study Description | Design and Methods | Results | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Changes in Flow | Physical Environment | Marine Geophysical Survey | Detailed bathymetric mapping, side-scan sonar and sub-bottom profiling. | Depth from 2 to 12m LAT; seabed mostly made of sand. | Completed |
| Changes in Flow | Physical Environment | Tidal current. | Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) deployments. | Tidal current velocity up to 1.7 m/s. | Completed |
| Changes in Flow | Physical Environment | Wave conditions. | GNSS databuoy deployments. | Hs up to 2m. | Completed |