The Senate with a right-wing majority adopted at first reading on the night of Friday November 4 to Saturday November 5 a bill to accelerate renewable energies (EnR), led by the Minister for Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher, who will attempt as soon as December 5 to find a majority in the National Assembly. The vote on this text largely enriched by the senators was acquired by 320 votes “for” and 5 “against” (4 LR and a centrist). The majority communist CRCE group abstained.
In the midst of the energy crisis, this bill aims to make France catch up on its great delay in renewable energies. It is divided into major components: streamlining of administrative procedures to reduce the time it takes to deploy projects; accelerating the development of solar energy and offshore wind; improving the local acceptability of projects.
The EnR bill is the first part of a triptych supplemented by a bill aimed at facilitating the construction of six new nuclear reactors, presented to the Council of Ministers on Wednesday. Then, in the second half of 2023, by the next programming law on energy and climate. “We don’t have the luxury of waiting to get out of fossil fuels. The French are watching us”underlined the Minister of Energy Transition.
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Two blocking points introduced in committee on the initiative of the rapporteur LR Didier Mandelli were lifted in the hemicycle, at the cost of long negotiations. The Senate has given up a right of “veto” of mayors on the establishment of renewable energies, in favor of a more global system based on the choice by the municipalities of “priority zones”. “The mayor will therefore be able to oppose the installation of wind turbines if he does not want them on his territory”, said the LR group. This rather complex device should be “smoothed out” in the continuation of the shuttle.
The Senate also waived the 40 km distance from the coast for offshore wind turbines, which according to Agnès Pannier-Runacher would have reduced “very significantly” the development potential of these projects.
The PS group has “delighted that the main political orientations of the senatorial right have been undermined during the debate in public session”. Environmentalists welcomed “of the abolition of the right of veto of mayors” and “major advances” obtained on photovoltaic installations. “The Senate will be able to claim to have taken on board local elected officials” in the development of renewable energies, said the chair of the Economic Affairs Committee Sophie Primas (LR).
The objective set by President Emmanuel Macron for 2050 is to multiply by ten the production capacity of solar energy to exceed 100 GW and to deploy 50 wind farms at sea to reach 40 GW. “It is imperative that MPs mobilize to strengthen this text, which is too weak, particularly on onshore wind power, with respect for local residents and biodiversity”reacted to AFP Nicolas Nace of Greenpeace France.