Emmanuel Macron inaugurated this Thursday off Saint-Nazaire the very first of a series of offshore wind farms, the deployment of which he intends to accelerate in the face of the energy crisis.
“This wind farm is operational but it took more than 10 years.
(…) We need to reduce the delays”, noted the Head of State from the outset.
“A few months ago, we adopted a national energy strategy, but there have never been so many worries about energy.
Times have changed,” he continued.
The president repeated his ambition, that of strengthening France's "energy sovereignty", in the midst of soaring hydrocarbon prices and faced with the risk of shortages linked to the war in Ukraine.
“Our strategy is to combine three objectives: sovereignty, therefore less dependence, the climate, that is to say decarbonizing and the third thing is affordable costs for businesses and households,” he said. .
The Head of State was to go this Thursday, by boat, to the site of 80 wind turbines, deployed 12 to 20 km from the coasts of Pouliguen and Croisic.
The fleet, operated by EDF, will be fully commissioned by the end of the year.
Ultimately, it should produce the equivalent of 20% of the annual electricity consumption of the entire department.
A first in France.
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In the process, the tenant of the Élysée spoke of the main lines of the bill for the "acceleration of renewable energies", which will be presented to the Council of Ministers on Monday.
France will “massively increase its electricity needs”, by “40% by 2050”, he notes.
“We must be able to do twice as fast as what we have just done” for renewable projects, he judged.
Still, "this acceleration will be done with respect for biodiversity", wanted to reassure the Head of State.
Because the bill continues to raise concerns, especially on the side of environmental defense associations.
A bill on renewable energies
First pillar mentioned: "planning and implementation" of the renewable energy project.
“The strategy will be broken down by sector and geography.
The idea will be to territorialize this planning with the elected officials”, underlined the president.
Incidentally, offshore wind "will be developed, with around fifty offshore parks [as an objective] for 2050", he reiterated.
Second lever, the bill on renewable energies.
The latter will be presented on September 26 to the Council of Ministers.
“There will be regulatory measures: with a reduction in litigation times, measures on connection to the network, a simplification of procedures to go quickly”.
The text thus aims to shorten the deadlines for carrying out projects by simplifying administrative procedures and limiting the time it takes to examine appeals lodged by environmentalists, fishermen and local residents.
More solar panels
The president wishes to initiate a
“land release”.
“We will install more solar panels”, he assures, citing in particular the city with “the question of large car parks”, “certain wastelands”, “edges of highways” or even “the edge of railways” .
The president still hopes to facilitate this installation in degraded areas such as old landfills.
Incidentally, he wants “progress” on agrivoltaism, that is to say the combination of agricultural activities with solar panels.
An acceleration for nuclear
Regarding the thorny nuclear issue, the president also said he wanted these projects to be accelerated "by simplifying things".
The objective is to go “much faster” in the construction of six new generation nuclear reactors, which he had set for 2035 in his Belfort speech in February.
“We will be in the same logic with a text of law on this subject”, said the president.
With this project, Emmanuel Macron intends to give pledges to the left and to environmentalists, while at the same time emphasizing pensions or unemployment insurance towards the right.
However, the examination of the text promises to be difficult in the National Assembly, in the absence of an absolute majority and faced with an extreme right and certain right-wing elected officials standing up against wind power.
