Defence firm pushes into energy security

DCNS, the French builder of navy ships and nuclear submarines, now provides for the battle against climate change.

BREST // DCNS, a French defence contractor, traces its history to 1631, when Cardinal Richelieu set up the navy's first shipyard.

The companybuilds nuclear submarines and battleships for military forces around the world. But recently it has turned towards another kind of security.

"The need for energy in the world is growing," says Marc Falhun, the purchasing manager at DCNS's technology incubator near the port at Brest in Brittany. "Fossil fuels … [such as oil] are more and more expensive."

That is why his company is investing €40 million (Dh207.8m) in wind turbines that float at sea and more millions in other experimental forms of clean energy - all part of an effort to remain a leading exporter of hard-to-build technology.

The company, which is owned by the French government, works in partnership with companies such Ireland's OpenHydro, creates designs for DCNS to commercialise and build. The devices are destined for customers as wide-ranging as EDF, a French energy company, and the government of Martinique.

"These clients have nothing to do with our historic clients," Mr Falhun says.

The addition of renewable energy to DCNS's portfolio is in part an insurance plan for the future, because its core market - the French military - is "stable or going down", says Mr Falhun.

Among the technologies DCNS is developing is a floating power plant that exploits the difference between warm water at the sea's surface and the cool water below to produce energy or power desalination systems. If the company can find the right conditions, it hopes to sell such devices to the Gulf region too.

"It can offer some energy independence to some countries who are dependent today on other countries," says Mr Falhun. "And the resources will never perish, because it's wind and tides."