Macron calls for ‘massive acceleration’ of renewable energies in France – EQ Mag Pro
The energy strategy announced by the president on Thursday relies on the speedy construction of two infrastructures: wind turbines and nuclear reactors.
Blades the size of an Airbus spin atop 80 white masts, off Saint-Nazaire, 15 kilometers from France’s west coast. The shuttle that carried Emmanuel Macron and his delegation on Thursday, September 22, seemed insignificant in the middle of the first French offshore wind farm. It took 14 years and four presidential terms for a head of state to finally inaugurate it. “A happy day!” said Mr. Macron, before admitting that it was “terribly frustrating” to launch a project without seeing the fruits of it. In January 2011, Nicolas Sarkozy had come here to announce the harnessing of offshore wind power decided at the 2008 Grenelle de l’environnement, a summit gathering political actors from different backgrounds to come up with long-term solutions to the environmental crisis.
The president took his February 10 Belfort speech exactly where he had left it, setting out an energy strategy based on three pillars: sufficiency, renewables and nuclear. A policy that he “justified by the war in Ukraine” and Vladimir Putin’s blackmail regarding gas. “The key to energy is diversification,” he has been repeating since his nuclear turn. Banking on energy sovereignty that is far from being achieved, he now wants to “go twice as fast” in the deployment of renewable energies.
The “glorious day” does little to hide the huge obstacles that await him. In hopes of covering the electricity needs that will shoot up “massively” by 40%, Mr. Macron is holding his course: To have about 50 off-shore wind farms by 2050. This means freeing up 40 gigawatts worth of power for construction work. But France has a lot of catching up to do. “Our neighbors are going much faster,” the president noted on at least three occasions. Compared with the 81 French offshore wind turbines, Belgium has 400, Denmark 630, Germany 1,500 and the United Kingdom 2,500. The French ambition for 2050 is to reach the current British level.
‘It’s not like changing a bulb’
In the meantime, the park commissioned 10 years ago (6 megawatts) is far behind the latest technology (14 megawatts). “In 2011, we were at the top of the game. Now, we’re behind, even if it’s still a Ferrari,” said Olivier de la Laurencie, director of the Saint-Nazaire wind farm. It is impossible to start everything again from scratch. “It’s not like changing a light bulb,” said Franck Louvrier, mayor of near-by city La Baule. Why does an offshore site take only five or six years to complete in neighboring countries, compared to 10 years in France? Mr. Macron blames it on slow administration and uncooperative parties, whose unjustified appeals delay projects. This poses a problem in a competitive world.
In Saint-Nazaire, Mr. Macron decreed a “massive acceleration.” His ideal goal would be to commission a solar energy project in three years, and an offshore wind power one in five years. The pace should make it possible to honor France’s unmet commitments for 2020 and have 23% of renewables in its energy mix. The president has entrusted Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and her ministers with the stewardship of the project. “Consultation and acceleration are not incompatible,” said Mr. Macron, who is being challenged over the pension reform he wants to hasten. The dialogues with elected officials must take place at an early stage, in order to “create consensus right from the beginning” but without wasting time.
The president has already outlined the draft bill on the acceleration of renewable energy production, prior to the bill’s presentation to the Council of Ministers on September 26. He insisted on two measures: the simplification of procedures and the reduction of the periods during which appeals can be made to a maximum of two and a half years (compared to four years today). He said this will not harm biodiversity, while his relative majority in parliament will rely on environmentalist and socialist votes to pass the law. It could then speed up the wind power projects off the island of Oléron, south of Saint-Nazaire, in the Channel and in the Mediterranean.
‘Onshore wind needed for energy goals’
Even onshore wind power, which he does not like very much, will have to follow this pace. While Mr. Macron had wanted to “spread out” the tripling of the facilities promised by 2030, he also warned that “we slowed down development. But let’s be very clear about this, if we want to achieve energy sufficiency and our targets for 2050, we need onshore wind.” The re-orientation is accompanied by an appeal to local officials. The country’s 9,000 wind turbines are concentrated in a few regions. “We need to open things up!” he said.
Mr. Macron wants to take advantage of all options. He plans to install photovoltaic panels on wasteland, large parking lots, and on the edge of freeways to “protect the beauty of our landscape while developing renewable energy.” This includes farmland, which he said has a significant “potential for additional income” for farmers. He promised “safeguards” to prevent solar energy infrastructure from eating away at fields (“Solar panels will not replace herds”), taking into account the consultations with the French Agricultural Council and young farmers.
Mr. Macron is also banking on incentives. “It’s more money and a fair return” for communities, local residents and fishermen,” he said, referring to the funds raised by the tax on wind power, which he wants to enshrine into law. Half of the 9 million euros raised by the Saint-Nazaire wind farm will go to the coastal towns. The rest is for fishermen, environmental groups and lifeguards. The 13 towns concerned are competing for the funds. Mr. Louvrier would have preferred wind turbines “the size of cotton buds, not tree trunks”. He also wants “the pie to be bigger” by taking into account the summer residents of La Baule. “It’s just the locals during the winter, so the calculation according to the number of inhabitants is distorted,” said Marie-Catherine Lehuédé, mayor of Batz-sur-Mer.
Mr. Macron’s willingness in this area is in line with his “fast track nuclear strategy” involving the construction of six EPR 2 reactors by 2035. Again, he intends to “go much faster” with the help of a law adapting town planning procedures and a program launched “from now on.” He sought to improve the atmosphere regarding his relationship with Jean-Bernard Lévy, CEO of French electricity giant EDF. The two had previously traded blame over the issue of reactors undergoing maintenance. “It’s very easy to look for culprits. The reality is that the error comes from much further back,” he said. During the launch of the project to build the wind farm in Saint-Nazaire, in June 2019, François de Rugy, then minister for environmental transition, had asked Mr. Lévy to go faster so that the wind farm would be ready just before the presidential election of 2022. The EDF boss said that this was not possible. Politics and infrastructure projects work on different timescales.
Source: lemonde
