Doubts over government policy on onshore wind competed with optimism over offshore wind at the French wind sector's annual conference in Paris on Wednesday.
The event took place a day after the first policy announcements of prime minister Michel Barnier, in which he said his government would "better handle the impacts" of wind energy.
No more detail is available on what this will mean exactly, although far-right party Rassemblement National (RN), which props up Barnier's minority government, is strongly opposed to wind energy. And of two of the parties in his coalition, president Emmanuel Macron's EPR and Barnier's own Les Republicans (LR), the former is supportive of wind, while the latter is more sceptical without being downright opposed, one developer told Argus.
While junior energy minister Olga Givernet told the conference of her intention to reduce the delays developers face, participants Argus spoke to feared Barnier's evocation of "impacts" could mean an expansion of barriers to building new capacity.
"We already take the impacts into account," one developer said, noting that firms perform extensive studies and undertake environmental impact assessments (EIAs). And legal challenges are one of the main obstacles slowing down capacity increases, with one developer calling for better-trained judges to reduce the number of "arbitrary" decisions made in these cases.
Delays in receiving grid connection and EIAs were other factors developers cited.
But the conference was more upbeat on offshore wind. The government will in the coming weeks announce priority zones for offshore wind, which will allow it to launch tenders for 8-10GW of capacity by the end of the year. These will contribute to the country's goal of reaching 18GW of installed capacity by 2035.
At the same time, the increasing occurrence of negative price hours threatens the sector, according to industry body France Renouvelables.
Negative prices can pose a threat to grid stability, according to grid operator RTE. Large quantities of renewables can be shut down suddenly at the beginning of negative price hours, leading to a sharp output slope, which the grid operator has little visibility of, RTE said.
Negative prices are a problem for operators too, even those under contracts for difference (CfDs) which are not directly exposed, according to Jean-Francois Petit of renewables operator Boralex. Operators typically shut down during negative pricing hours, but receive only partial compensation for lost output, he said, while the requirement that production be completely halted can be difficult operationally.
And slow progress on repowering could represent another brake to capacity increases. Repowering is not underpinned by primary legislation, but only by ministerial circulars, one developer said, which offers little certainty to firms that want to undertake it. Meanwhile, height limits imposed for aviation constraints and landscape protection reduce the potential to add taller, more powerful turbines. French turbines are typically much smaller than those in neighbouring countries because of these height limits, which reduces access to higher-quality wind resource.
And an open question remains over potential local content requirements in future tenders for CfDs. These requirements, enabled by the European Net Zero industry Act (NZIA) and supported by energy regulator the CRE, could prove a fillip for manufacturers of energy-transition materiel such as wind turbines, hobbled by competition from Chinese manufacturers.
But incorporation of these requirements would push up costs, requiring higher strike prices at CfDs and more public subsidy. Energy minister Givernet did not appear to give the conference any hints on which way the government would lean, saying that control over both energy prices and security of supply were absolute priorities.
Reaching France's goals by 2028 of 33.2-34.7GW of onshore capacity would require an installation rate of 2.3-2.7 GW/yr, roughly twice rates reached in recent years (see graph).
