“We must not tell stories by saying French society is ready to deploy (wind power) twice, three times faster”, judged Agnès Pannier-Runacher in this interview carried out Thursday in Berlin on the occasion of his first trip abroad to Berlin for a meeting of G7 Energy and Climate Ministers.
“We must continue the deployment at the same pace as today, that is to say a pace which clearly corresponds to what French society is ready to accept,” she added.
The installation of onshore wind turbines is arousing more and more opposition, hampering the implementation of these projects.
For this reason, the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron revised downwards France’s ambitions in terms of the development of wind turbines in February.
The government’s objective is now to double the current capacity in 30 years, rather than 10 years as previously planned.
The gap with Germany in this area should therefore grow because Berlin has placed the development of wind turbines among its priorities. The government has thus set itself the objective of devoting up to 2% of its territory to this source of energy.
“There is not a single path to decarbonization,” defended the minister, also stressing the government’s desire to “develop offshore wind and solar power”.
Ms Pannier-Runacher, however, defended the need for “administrative simplification” to speed up wind turbine projects, whether at sea or on land.
“The delay we have in the deployment of renewable energies is linked to procedural problems and litigation problems”, she justified.
In 2020, France increased its wind generation capacity by 8%, with 1.3 gigawatts (GW) and 477 additional wind turbines, bringing the total park to 18 GW, according to France wind energy (FEE).
Wind power thus provided 7.9% of national electricity production (6.3% in 2019), which makes it the 3rd source behind nuclear (about 70%) and hydroelectricity.
