- France’s Assemblée Nationale and its Senate have just passed the bill designed to facilitate the creation of renewable energy projects – vital for tackling the challenges posed by climate change and the current energy crisis.
According to the company’s website news release on February 7, 2023, for ENGIE, this new bill enshrines in law the desire to speed up the development of renewable energy projects for the energy transition. In particular, the law provides for shorter lead and development times in dedicated acceleration regions, as well as significant breakthroughs designed to facilitate the development of offshore wind projects.
Implementing the law will now be key in order to accelerate the effective rollout of renewables across France's various regions and to incorporate them into the energy mix. Currently, some 20 GW worth of projects are held up in France at various stages of development. The reasons are insufficient resources for conducting studies into them, given the connection lead times. That's equivalent to the annual energy consumption of some 15 million people.
Developing renewals is a key lever for securing France's energy supply and bringing the costs of energy down following the energy crisis. As the leading onshore wind and solar player in France with a total of 8 GW of renewable installed capacity (and a target of 10 GW by 2025), ENGIE developed 32 solar and onshore wind projects in 2022. Firmly believing in the need for a responsible approach, the Group uses a unique method that has been certified by Bureau Veritas for its growth. This factors in the ease with which the electorate and elected representatives are able to adopt its projects, as well as their impact on biodiversity.
Renewable energies across-the-board – both onshore and offshore wind, photovoltaic, renewable gases (including low-carbon hydrogen) and heat – will be needed to make up a balanced energy mix. So over the forthcoming months, ENGIE will strive in particular to develop, including onshore wind and major photovoltaic projects (with associated low-carbon hydrogen projects), as well as massively deploying biogas, which will be crucial for the stability of our energy system.
Beyond these challenges, the aims of the future energy and climate plan law being consistent with those of this law on speeding up renewables will also be fundamental. Determined to play its role in driving the energy transition, ENGIE is appealing to the sector to set ambitious targets for deploying various renewable energies. It will also play a key role in this debate over the next few months.
