Last Monday, the government presented a bill to accelerate the development of renewable energies. A text focused on solar and offshore wind power.
Catherine MacGregor, managing director of Engie, the leader in wind and solar power in France, regretted on Friday that “onshore wind power” that is “become a dirty word“at a time when the energy transition and crisis require mobilizing”all renewable energies“. “This anti-wind feeling is no longer relevant in a world where we are in urgent need of energy every day“, told journalists the general manager of Engie, on the sidelines of a visit to a site of the onshore wind farms of La Bretelle and Echalot, in Côte-d’Or.
“We have the impression that onshore wind power has become a dirty word, or a taboo word“, she commented, while wind projects, especially on land, have been the subject of fierce protest in certain territories for a few years. For the director of Engie, the existence of a “anti-wind sentiment must have taken root with projects that were poorly done and dragged the industry down“.
Read also“The French government muzzles the protest”: opponents of wind farms counterattack at European level
On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of these wind farms in Côte-d’Or, a project launched in 2003 but whose operation only began in 2012 due to various appeals, the Director General welcomed the opposite of “ownershipof these installations, the fruit of a work ofconsultation» and of a method which wants to be «copy“. “On the dismantling (of wind turbines at the end of operation), we must be exemplary, we remove everything“, she explained.
The annual production of these parks of approximately 80,000 MWh/year makes it possible to supply 37,000 people with electricity, “i.e. the equivalent of nearly a quarter of the population of the city of Dijon“, according to Engie. While “demand for electricity will explode», «we are going to need nuclear power but that will not be enough, we will need a lot of renewable energies, solar, wind, at sea and on land. It is important to say that onshore wind will contribute to this balanced energy mix“, again underlined Ms. MacGregor.
Read alsoPrefects put under pressure by the government to develop wind power
The government presented a bill on Monday to accelerate the development of renewable energies in order to catch up with France, a text focused on solar and wind power at sea. Emmanuel Macron, who himself advocates halving the pace of onshore wind deployment planned so far, recognized that it would be needed.
SEE ALSO – The French “do not want wind turbines next to their homes” even if they are “for”, says Angélique Négroni