French floating-wind specialist BW Ideol announced that its project dubbed Fos3F, a first-of-its-kind fabrication line for concrete floating foundations in Fos-sur-Mer on the Mediterranean coast, has been selected by the European Commission under the Innovation Fund for a grant of up to €74 million (around US $80 million).
The award, announced on 4 November 2025, comes after a competitive process in which 61 projects were selected out of 359 applicants in the Cleantech Manufacturing category of the Innovation Fund’s latest call.
According to BW Ideol, the Fos3F facility will serially manufacture concrete substructures based on its patented Damping Pool® floating‐foundation design engineered for both 15 MW+ and next-generation 20 MW+ floating wind turbines. The project will leverage industrial techniques such as gantry slip-forming, skidding systems and automated prefabrication, adapted from civil‐infrastructure manufacturing to floating‐wind foundations.
The factory’s strategic role extends across southern Europe: it will serve floating-wind developments in France, Spain, Italy and Greece, covering a market estimated by the company at about 8 GW by 2043. Located at Fos-sur-Mer, the plant is projected to create roughly 1,300 direct jobs and boost regional industrial capacity for the offshore-wind supply chain.
BW Ideol has also obtained the STEP seal (Strategic Technology for Europe Platform), a mark of excellence conferred on promising projects by the European Commission.
The company and the European Commission will now enter a grant‐agreement preparation phase, during which the budget, timeline, technical deliverables and legal obligations will be finalised. That agreement process is expected to be completed in the first half of 2026.
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