Leading renewable energy group Natural Power has partnered with one of France's leading acoustic engineering consultancies, Venathec, to provide noise studies for wind farm developments across France. Studies and consultancy support provided by the partnership can cover the pre-development, Environmental Impact Assessments, construction and also operational phases of a wind farm project. Natural Power and Venathec have been active already on 85MW of projects including detailed analysis of turbine curtailment studies as part of Due Diligence for a major developer in the country.

Natural Power’s team in France have been active in the wind industry since 2003 and recently established a construction management office in Nantes. The team now comprises 18 staff including wind engineers, technical due diligence experts and construction managers. Venathec, established in 1999, have offices across France and provide their acoustic expertise across a number of industries including wind farm development. Venathec is one of France’s leading consultancies specialised in acoustic studies of wind farms and have worked on more than 3 GW to date.

The partnership was welcomed by Oisin Brady, Director of Natural Power France: “Acoustic studies are a key part of wind farm development in France. Our relationship with Venathec allows us to offer this service to many companies in the country now and we have already been active across multiple sites and projects requiring expert due diligence across a range of technical issues included noise. We are very proud to be able to provide clients with a holistic set of independent technical, development, construction and DD services in France.”

Patrice Cornu, President of Venathec, commented: “The issue of noise impact from wind turbines is strongly regulated in France and noise features from each site tend to be very unique. The understanding of sound propagation over larges distances requires great field knowledge and extensive experience. This is why Venathec now support Natural Power in various stages of their technical Due Diligence projects in France. We are sure that this new partnership will be fruitful for our companies and more importantly for our clients."