Contrary to popular belief, wind power has become an important source of revenue for the state budget and should bring in 3.7 billion euros in 2022, and even 5 billion, if we take into account the money that had been budgeted and will ultimately not be spent.
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By adding other renewable energies, in particular photovoltaics, the gain for public finances would represent 11 billion euros, just for this year. In 2021 and 2022, it would reach 14.4 billion euros, according to France Wind Energy (FEE), the trade union of professionals in the sector. “Renewables represent a powerful lever for protecting household purchasing power”assures Anne-Catherine de Tourtier, president of FEE.
Rising prices
The explanation lies in the recent spike in energy prices. The megawatt hour (MWh) traded on average around €108 in 2021 and at €231 in the first quarter of this year. In 2019, it was around €50. However, the majority of renewable energy contracts are governed by feed-in tariffs, signed for fifteen or twenty years. In wind power, for example, EDF has an obligation to buy back power around €90/MWh, on average, for contracts signed before 2017.
For years, the company resold it for much less on the market because prices were lower, costing subscribers and taxpayers a small fortune. But today, it’s the opposite. EDF makes profits on this bond mechanism and pays them back to the State.
The new system in force today achieves the same result. A “target price” is fixed during the call for tenders. When the market price is lower, the producer receives additional remuneration from the State. When the market price is higher, as is the case today, he pays a debt to the public authorities.
A very sensitive political issue
At this rate, if electricity prices are still around €110/MWh by the end of 2024, which is likely, “the wind power sector will have reimbursed everything it has received since 2003, i.e. 11 billion euros”, says Michel Gioria, General Delegate of FEE. By the end of this year, it should have covered a third of the way.
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In this period between two rounds of the presidential election, the subject is ultra-sensitive. Marine Le Pen wants to put an end to onshore wind power, the cost of which she estimates at 5 billion euros per year and is considering a moratorium, or even the dismantling of the installations. For his part, Emmanuel Macron has already promised to install far fewer machines than planned in order, according to him, not to damage the landscape. The objective of reaching 30 GW of installed capacity in 2030 (18.7 GW at the end of 2021) has thus been postponed to 2050.
“Let’s stop saying that we are subsidized. It is thanks to renewable energies that we have been able to limit the increase in the French electricity bill to 4%, but they do not know it”says Jean-Yves Grandidier, CEO of Valorem and one of the pioneers in the sector.
Opposition to new settlements
The speech made the traditional opponents of wind energy jump, who continued to denounce a “financial mismanagement” about an energy that covered only 7.8% of needs in 2021, given its intermittency. “Each new machine installed represents a cost, in particular in connection costs to the network”, says Jean-Louis Butré, president of the powerful Sustainable Environment Federation (FED). He denounces “the opacity” sector and recalls that the Court of Auditors is currently working on the subject.
Beyond the cost, it is above all the opposition of the populations that is now hampering the deployment of wind turbines. The refractories denounce their effect on the landscape and the real estate heritage, and on the vicinity of machines that can reach 235 meters high.
Professionals in this sector believe, despite everything, that we cannot make the energy transition without wind turbines. Faced with the risk of a power shortage next winter, with the shutdown of part of the nuclear fleet and the possible suspension of Russian gas deliveries, they say they are in a position to quickly connect 700 MW more than what was planned.