World outlook
With education on the rise, however – shadowed by attempts to smooth the planning process – well under way, people probably shouldn’t discount the country’s wind sector just yet.
Barricades to change
It might occupy the very heart of western Europe, but France is a surprisingly empty place. Paris is a fevered metropolis, of course, but Bordeaux, Lyon and Strasbourg all squat at the Hexagon’s outer edge. Between them are vast tracts of countryside, the meadows and vineyards that make up la France profonde. With a population density half that of Germany, this ‘deep France’ is remarkably desolate, especially when you add the lonely uplands of the Jura or the Auvergne. Together with a number of powerful prevailing winds, Pierre Tardieu describes France as “perfectly well suited from a resource and geographical standpoint” for the proliferation of wind energy. By one estimate, indeed, the country has the second-largest wind potential on the whole continent. And, as the chief policy officer at Wind Europe continues, all this is particularly true given France’s unusual shape. Places in the centre of the country may be securely connected to the nuclear-backed electricity supply, but outcrops like Brittany could really do with what Tardieu calls the “extra generation” offered by turbines. Given it has both the demand and the supply, in short, it makes sense that the Élysée has pushed so hard to develop the sector. President Macron wants one-third of French energy to come from clean sources by 2030, according to Wind Europe, and the government recently approved €30.5bn in subsidies for renewables. All this activity is bearing some fruit. Despite lockdowns and social distancing, France added 1GW to its wind power capacity in 2020, building on steady growth over the past decade. Even so, you get the sense that the country hasn’t really hit its stride. “France is a bit below national objectives in terms of wind energy development,” says Matthieu Monnier, deputy CEO at France Énergie Éolienne (FEE), the republic’s main promoter of wind energy. A fair point: according to a Statista report, though installed capacity topped 1GW back in 2006, it took another nine years to reach 10GW. By the end of 2020, France’s on and offshore wind farms were still only creating 17.6GW of power. To put that into perspective, neighbouring Spain boasted peaks of 14.9GW as long ago as November 2010, according to Red Eléctrica. To a certain extent, this gradualist approach can be understood in terms of France’s awesome nuclear capacity. Encompassing 56 reactors, altogether they pump out 45.2GW of power, or 72% of the country’s total energy usage, according to the World Nuclear Association. Meanwhile, France has long sold excess nuclear power abroad, swelling the national coffers
World Wind Technology /
www.worldwind-technology.com
by around €3bn each year. Yet as the furore at Saint- Brieuc implies, France’s aversion to wind extends to more than a love of atom splitting. From anarchists suspicious of corporate deals to wealthy landowners unwilling to see their views defiled, Tardieu says that many commentators now see wind farms as “incompatible with France’s cultural heritage”. To make matters worse, both Tardieu and Monnier agree the issue has become something of a political football. Though the Macron government broadly supports turbines, his right-wing opponents are adamantly opposed. If she wins the 2022 presidential election, Marine Le Pen has promised to “deconstruct wind farms” across land and sea. In the face of these pressures, Macron himself has had to backtrack, reiterating that nuclear power would always be “the cornerstone” of his country’s energy sector. Combined with thickets of red tape, and a military happy to invoke national security to interfere with projects – the army claims turbines disrupt radar platforms – it’s unsurprising Tardieu says these problems “significantly reduce the potential area for investments”.
1/3 Wind Europe
The amount of French energy that is to come from renewable sources by 2030.
“The French market is much more fragmented, much smaller and very well integrated in the community.”
Matthieu Monnier, France Énergie Éolienne
Plans and public perception When they become operational late 2022, 30 new additions to the Sud Marne wind park will prod France ever so slightly closer to a green tomorrow. In a partnership between TTR Energy and Vestas, the order, soon to luxuriate amid the endless wheat fields west of Paris, will create 122MW of clean, renewable energy. And though those 30 turbines will only represent a fraction of France’s total wind energy capacity, they’ll still make a welcome addition to Vestas’ footprint in the country. With 2,300 turbines, representing 5.8GW of capacity, the Danish manufacturer clearly prefers innumerable small projects to a few scattered giants. As Monnier explains, this is typical of France’s wind sector in general. “It’s not like Scandinavia, where you’re building massive gigawatt-scale wind farms,” he stresses. “The French market is much more fragmented, much smaller and very well integrated in the community.” Though statistics are scarce, this is basically supported by the numbers. Between 2002 and 2008, for example, the average size of French wind farms rose from 4.7MW to 13MW, according to a report by Reve. That may sound like a lot – until you compare it with other European countries. Even in 2010, from a report by State of Green, offshore farms in Denmark were averaging sizes of 300MW.
9
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33
