The development of the wind farm is invited into the debate of the future presidential election.
While Emmanuel Macron unveiled his investment plan of 30 billion euros, including 500 million for wind and photovoltaics, the candidate RN wants to wipe out this renewable energy.
“The considerable subsidies that we grant to intermittent energy, wind and photovoltaic, it is between 6 and 7 billion euros per year.
I am removing the subsidies, which will also allow the French to return half of a tax they pay on their electricity bill, ”she said on RTL.
At the same time, she wants to launch a “big project” to remove them from the landscape.
An ambitious development plan ...
Currently, the onshore wind power connected is of the order of 17.932 GW at the end of the first quarter of 2021. The number of onshore wind turbines in France in 2021 is estimated at 8,000, spread over 1380 wind farms in mainland France and overseas. Sea.
In total, wind energy was used to supply 8.4% of national electricity consumption in the first quarter of 2021. This production is driven by onshore wind power, but the number of calls for tenders for offshore wind is growing over the last few years.
wind power in Europe
The development plan is ambitious even if it is behind schedule: the target in terms of wind power in France by 2028 is between 33.2 and 34.7 GW for onshore wind power and 5.2 to 6.2 GW for maritime or offshore wind power, according to the multiannual energy programming law.
At the same time, the debate rages on. Economical in CO2, contributing to our energy independence and the resilience of our electricity system for their defenders, including the Minister of the Environment Barbara Pompili, wind turbines are howling their detractors, who rely in particular on a vitriolic report from the Court of the 2018 accounts on subsidies, rightly pointed out by Marine Le Pen. According to the Republican deputy Pierre Charon, beyond the “acoustic and visual” annoyances, “the costs of direct support for the wind power sector are“ aberrant ”. To arrive at 15% of the total electricity produced by wind power, the estimated cost varies between 73 and 90 billion euros if the objectives set for this sector by the 2019-2028 multiannual energy programming project are respected. ."And recall in parallel that" 80 billion euros were invested in nuclear which provided 71.7% of non-carbon electricity production in 2018. "
Beyond these financial arguments, the report calls into question the neutrality in CO2 emissions of this technology and raises the question of the difficult recycling of carbon blades.
Arguments that hit the mark, rather on the right - Xavier Bertrand denounced a "national scandal" during the regional meetings, and at the RN, in the name of the defense of rurality, "landscapes" and "sacrificed citizens".
"I am not Emmanuel Macron, I have clear positions"
To tell the truth, even Emmanuel Macron who relies mainly on nuclear power has put a little water in his wine on the development of wind turbines. Defending last July "pragmatism on a case-by-case basis" on wind projects, to avoid "damaging our landscapes", he also repeatedly described last Tuesday wind and solar "non-renewable energies" … “A slip that would translate his deep opinion on these energies (…)? “Asks Celia Gauthier, climate and energy manager at the Foundation for Nature and Humanity.
In any case, Marine Le Pen played the contrast this Thursday on RTL - "I am not Emmanuel Macron, I have clear positions" - with therefore an unprecedented commitment: "to dismantle" the wind turbines. If we do not yet understand whether it included the entire park or if it only spoke of wind turbines under construction, the cost of such dismantling would be staggering anyway. If wind turbine promoters must systematically provide 50,000 euros for the dismantling of each unit when it reaches its end of life - after about twenty years - this figure is unanimously considered to be largely insufficient.
According to these transcripts of senatorial debates dating from early 2020, it could rise to more than 120,000 euros per unit.
In 2019, in an action for annulment against the decree of August 26, 2011 which sets the rules for restoring and providing financial guarantees for wind farms, the Sustainable Environment Federation (FED), an environmental association, even set at "Several hundred thousand euros per wind turbine" the cost of dismantling.
