The government launched on Monday with the actors of the sea a planning process for the French maritime façades, with the center of this objective on the deployment of wind energy at sea.
The Secretary of State for the Sea, Hervé Berville, created a National Council for the Sea and Coastline (CNML) of 52 members (fishermen, shippers, energy companies, environmental associations, elected officials and other stakeholders).
This planning will be declined by facades.
This “must be articulated with the development approaches carried out by the communities, both in the industrial sphere and in that of infrastructures and employment, and in particular will be aimed at addressing the issue of the location of wind farms in the sea”, explains the Secretary of State.
Query
The CNML will organize workshops at the beginning of 2023, a “broad consultation” that should lead to “shared strategic orientations”, also in line with the energy roadmap that France must draw next year, we added.
“The objective is to capitalize on maritime issues, protection of the oceans, transportation, tourism, economy, fishing and shellfishing, and now energy,” says one to the office of the Secretary of State.
It will be necessary to “retake all the issues identified, and see how to accelerate to achieve all these issues,” we added.
Once this “informal” work is completed in 2023, the idea is to “continue with more legal sequences, with public debates” through facades under the aegis of the National Commission for Public Debate (CNDP), this source specifies.
This process will produce “strategic front documents”, prioritizing activities, with modes of operation and maps, “less precise than the PLU but, for example, where quite precise areas for offshore wind, maritime corridors, marine protected areas… “
7 parks awarded, the first inaugurated
Wind power players are asking for the planning of development zones, instead of bidding in batches, in order to keep up with the pace of deployment that meets the country’s objectives.
Whether or not there is a reactivation of nuclear energy, all energy scenarios augur for France a strong boom in offshore wind energy, to face the growth of electricity needs and global warming (carbon neutrality in 2050). For RTE, the manager of the high-voltage network, between 22 and 62 gigawatts (GW) would be needed for this horizon, depending on the package chosen.
President Emmanuel Macron supports the cap of 40 GW, or about 50 parks.
In France, seven parks (3.6 GW in total) have been awarded to operators to date, the first of which, off Saint-Nazaire, has just been inaugurated, 10 years after its award.
Source: BFM TV
