France plans to invest €10bn ($13.6bn) to build its first offshore wind project.

It will build a wind farm with 600 offshore wind turbines, with a total capacity of 3,000MW in the western regions of Loire-Atlantique, Brittany, and Normandy.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy told Reuters that the first tender would cover five development areas for offshore wind power to give the industry’s players greater visibility.

The project has the capacity to generate power equivalent to that of three small nuclear reactors.

France aims to build wind power capacity of 25,000MW by 2020 to cover 23% of its demand.