Dense groves, woods, suburbs
12,6 – 16,2
16,2 – 18
18 – 21,6
> 21,6
open countryside
16,2 – 19,8
19,8 – 23,4
23,4 – 27
Pairies plates
18 – 21,6
21,6 – 25,2
25,2 – 30,6
> 30,6
lakes, sea
19,8 – 25,2
25,2 – 28,8
28,8 – 32,4
> 32,4
Ridges, hills
25,2 – 30,6
30,6 – 36
36 – 41,4
> 41,4
Half of the power installed in France is in Hauts-de-France (5.4 gigawatts) and the Grand-Est region (4.3 gigawatts). Occitanie completes the podium with 1.6 GW installed, which is not much for a region very favored in terms of winds.
Lagging behind its European neighbors
Denmark created its first offshore wind farm in 1991, in Vindeby, which was operated for twenty-five years until it was dismantled due to its age in 2017. The first French wind farm, installed offshore of Saint-Nazaire, was awarded in 2011, but its final connection did not take place until 2022, i.e. eleven years later.
If we compare France to Germany and the United Kingdom – countries that are geographically close, with a population and surface area of the same order of magnitude and with comparable wind resources – its lag is obvious. The British and the Germans have installed more turbines, with which they produced 21% and 23% of their electricity respectively in 2021. Against 7.8% for France.
This delay on the part of wind power in French production is also found on the side of installed power. The British earn 25.7 GW against 63.7 GW for the Germans in 2021. France still had 18.7 GW for 2021 – and 20 GW as of June 30, 2022.
In 2021, only 1.3 gigawatts of power were installed and connected to the French electricity grid, i.e. 7% of the total power installed between the 1990s and the year 2021.
A certain political inconsistency on wind power
Terrestrial or wind, Paris got into it later than its neighbours. The first call for tenders program dates back to 1996 and, in general, France has not taken as much interest as its neighbors in renewable energies and wind power in particular. Notably because of the preponderant role of nuclear power in French energy policy.
Among the first reasons for the French delay, we find the lack of political consistency in terms of renewable energy, and wind power in particular. Since 2020 – and Emmanuel Macron’s hostile speech to onshore wind power delivered in Pau – there has been “new news” explains Jérémy Simon, the general delegate of the Renewable Energies Syndicate (SER) in charge of wind power: “It’s the deadline for issuing permits. » Which means “the prefects, depending on local contexts or statements by the executive, put their foot on the brake”, laments Mr. Simon. Clear, “only the prefect’s signature is missing” and this creates significant delays even though all authorizations have been obtained.
It is all the more difficult for the sector to structure itself as the political discourse is constantly changing. Mr. Macron had, in fact, spent the first years of his first term in “accelerating investments in renewables” and promised to “double the capacity of French wind power”. And if the current President of the Republic is the most recent example in this area, this political inconstancy on renewables was also shared by François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy.
The regulatory aspect also plays an important role, explains Aurore-Emmanuelle Rubio, because for “to carry out a sector, we need simple and clear regulations”. However, according to the lawyer specializing in the energy sector, “there has been a lack of planning and coordination in the projects so far” and even a few “red tape” who contributed to this lack of stability. The French sector has suffered from a “changing regulations”.
Thus, until 2014 – date of their abolition – there were areas identified for the development of wind power, the ZDEs, which proved to be a major source of litigation, thus promoting legal uncertainty for wind power projects.
Finally, there is the question of local acceptability, “on which France has perhaps not worked enough”we loveme Rubio. However, there are several solutions to this. Germany has, for example, associated municipalities with wind projects, which allows them to collect tax revenue – this is also one of the tracks of the law which must be presented in France at the end of September.
Local opposition
There are several types of local opposition to wind energy, ranging from “sincere people, who, to achieve their ends, use a form of legal harassment” to opponents, “who find that wind power is ugly or useless and that it spoils the landscape”, details Jérémy Simon, of the SER. This through “opponents rather in the downward movement and on the far left, who believe that wind turbines are a bad solution to a real energy problem” or “former nuclear executives who do not want their country to move towards a complementary mix of carbon-free energies”.
In fact, if wind farm projects are rarely canceled by the courts, they are systematically or almost systematically attacked before the administrative courts, among others by the Sustainable Environment Federation (FED), the main French anti-wind association.
These opponents of wind power are sometimes joined by national politicians or personalities, such as Stéphane Bern, who “try to save heritage with the French”. Among the politicians is Marine Le Pen, who proposed during the 2022 presidential campaign to dismantle the wind turbines already installed.
Massive litigation
Since the start of the French onshore wind power sector in the 2000s, the main obstacle “these are the disputes”, explains the deputy general delegate of the SER. Precisely “seven out of ten onshore wind projects are subject to appeal” in court, when, finally, “only one or two [projets] are effectively annulled by the courts”believes Jérémy Simon.
But with three levels of administrative justice – administrative tribunals, administrative courts of appeal, Council of State – it takes five to seven years to complete an onshore wind project in France (compared to three to four in Germany) and eleven years for the only project at sea carried out (compared to five to six years across the Rhine).
France is also behind in photovoltaics, since France has reached 15.2 GW of installed power – and only supplied 3.8% of electricity in the first half of 2021 –, while the multi-year program Energy forecasts a target of 20.1 GW for the end of 2023.
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