the government says it wants a “change of scale” to accelerate projects

To deploy this energy source, the ministers in charge of Energy, Bruno Le Maire and Roland Lescure, made several announcements this afternoon, during a major meeting of the sector in Saint-Nazaire, on the Atlantic shipyards.

“We must take a giant step”, says Bruno Le Maire. The Minister of the Economy therefore reaffirms France’s objectives. It gives a timetable for the procedures for future offshore wind farms and promises to go faster for each project. “Today, it takes twelve years to build a wind farm, that is to say the time you take the decision and then you apply this decision the technologies become obsolete and very often they lose their profitability. We we want to halve the time so that it goes from twelve years to six years”explains the minister.

The objective is ambitious: for offshore wind to provide more than 20% of the electricity consumed in France in 2050, while we are close to zero today with only one park operating at full capacity, and two which are starting to produce electricity.

“Each step will be dramatically simplified and shortened”

“First we have to clean our house.”, says Roland Lescure, the Minister for Energy and Industry, who specifies how to reduce these delays. “The State was not up to the task in terms of efficiency and speed of the different stages of the specifications. At each stage, it’s two, three, four months too long and when you add two, three or four months to each procedure, you end up with years of instructions before you even start designing and building. And so each step will be dramatically simplified and shortened.”

An essential simplification confirms the players in the sector, such as Catherine MacGregor, the general director of Engie, one of the companies involved in the park under construction off the islands of Yeu and Noirmoutier. “We’ve been working on this for over ten yearsexplains general director of Engie. Today, for example, we are going to install eight megawatt turbines which were the previous technology. And so we see that technology is developing and modernizing all the time.” The turbines are now “more powerful” says Catherine McGregor, “and so the more you can shorten the deadline for these projects, the more you have the best technologies. So it’s good for everyone”. It is also good for the acceptance of projects locally, assure the general director of Engie and the ministers.

“We must take this climate reality into account in calls for tenders”

The government is also announcing measures to promote the French offshore wind turbine industry. Bruno Le Maire talks about “European protection”. The minister announces the addition of new criteria in calls for tenders. Criteria on CO emissions₂ for example must allow French and European manufacturers to be best placed to win contracts. “I consider in a very simple waycontinues Bruno Le Maire, that a wind turbine blade which is manufactured in Saint-Nazaire, with carbon-free energy in very satisfactory environmental conditions and which has not traveled thousands of kilometers before coming here, it has a carbon footprint which is better than ‘a blade which was brought 6,000 to 8,000 kilometers and produced in less satisfactory conditions. And I consider that in a call for tenders, we must take this climatic reality into account.”

A measure welcomed by Jules Nyssen, president of the renewable energies union: “We have all these skills in Europe, and in France, in particular, we have four of the twelve European factories. The Chantiers de l’Atlantique which make substations are the companies which manufacture blades, nacelles, masts. It’s a whole series of professions and activities. We have to promote that. In any case, today, what’s good is that we clearly see the government’s will. , it’s about making a lot of energy with offshore wind turbines and creating specifications that allow manufacturers to respond with local content, and that’s really the good news.” This industrial sector of offshore wind turbines today represents nearly 8,000 jobs in France. The government is aiming for 20,000 within ten years.