The context of the war in Ukraine and its attendant energy anxieties are forcing the government to review its roadmap. Witness the announcement, Thursday, July 28, of a first round of emergency regulatory measures to accelerate the development of renewable energies and the launch, on Friday, of an offshore wind project off the island. d’Oléron, more than 35 kilometers from the coast.
At the end of the public debate, the executive stated that it wanted to set up this project for two parks, outside the limits of the marine natural park of the Gironde estuary and the Pertuis sea, in order to meet the requirements of the inhabitants of the island and the coast opposed to a location closer to the coast. For the first park, a “competitive dialogue” was opened, with the aim of designating the winner in early 2024 with a view to commissioning in the early 2030s. “This first installed wind farm, with a capacity of approximately 1,000 megawatts [MW], may be supplemented later with a second park of no more than 1,000 MW”details the Ministry of Energy Transition, which undertakes to take into account all environmental impact studies on the area. “The second park could be located even further offshore, with technology that could be floating or placed depending on preliminary studies that will start simultaneously with the first park. » In total, these works should make it possible to supply a volume of electricity equivalent to the consumption of 1.6 million inhabitants, ie more than double the population of Charente-Maritime.
In this sector of renewable energies, where France is clearly lagging behind its objectives, the ambition for the executive also lies in the desire to unblock or accelerate, before next winter, projects in the solar, power or biomethane for the time being penalized by the rise in construction costs. In a context of rising prices, some of these initiatives may not see the light of day, given the fact that their costs are not “no longer covered by the purchase price of electricity or biomethane guaranteed by the State”, according to the Ministry of Energy Transition. The latter has already identified 6 to 7 gigawatts (GW) of solar projects and 5 to 6 GW in wind power. In the field of biomethane, the Union of Renewable Energies (SER) had, for its part, mentioned in June the figure of 5 terawatt-hours of production capacity threatened.
“No longer dependent on third countries”
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