Energy: Wind energy is blowing hard

WIND ENERGY IS BLOWING HARD

June 2006

In keeping with the Kyoto Protocol to Reduce Greenhouse Gases and in conformity with a European directive on the development of renewable energy, France is implementing an ambitious policy and has launched its first offshore wind park.

Adopted in September 2005, France’s renewable energy development programme is underway, and will include the construction of the country’s first offshore wind farm. Set to be operational in 2008, 21 windmills anchored at a depth of 23 metres will soon rise out of the waves of the Channel, some 7 km off the coast of Veulette-sur-Mer, in Seine-Maritime, France’s Alabaster Coast. The windmills, with a capacity of 105 MW*, will produce annually the equivalent of the household consumption of a city of 30,000 inhabitants. The first megawatts will be purchased for a “guaranteed rate” of approximately €100 MW/hour. The additional cost (approximately 17 million euros annually - the wholesale cost of electricity is €45 MW/hour) will be financed by the French state and distributed on consumer electricity bills.

The objective of France’s offshore windmill programme is to promote the development of renewable energy. With its many sea-facing fronts, France is the European Union’s second largest wind energy field**. According to the data collected by the French Energy Management and Environment Agency (ADEME), wind energy production in France increased by 140% as of 2005, with, in particular, the construction of France’s largest wind park, inaugurated in October 2005 in Ally, Haute-Loire. Some 120 wind farms and 1,000 windmills are currently operational in France.

Despite these figures, only 14% of France’s electricity, 19% of its heating (wood) and 1% of its fuel oils (biodiesel, bioethanol, etc.) come from renewable sources. This can be broken down as follows: hydraulic energy 92%, urban waste 4.7%, wood and wood waste 1.9%, with the remainder going to wind power, biogas and solar energy. As such, wind energy continues to represent a very small percentage of the electricity produced in France: as of early 2004, approximately 250 MW.

By 2010, however, in conformity with the European Directive of September 27, 2001, France has committed itself to generating 21% of its electric consumption (compared to 14%) through renewable sources. The “contribution of wind energy to this objective, as well as to the fight to reduce climate change, is decisive”, emphasised the French Ministry of Ecology and Sustainable Development in 2005.

Energy has become a major economic stake, with the steady increase in oil prices during the past decade, the forecasted depletion of the world’s reserves of black gold, the negative impact of human activities on the environment and on health, climate change and reduced air quality. Currently, the production and utilisation of energy are at the heart of international community discussions, with two main priority areas: the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the development of substitute energies.

More than ten years prior to the introduction of the 3R Initiative (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) ***, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was adopted at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio with the aim of stabilising greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere to their 1990 levels by the year 2000. This objective has not been achieved. As such, due to the extent of the phenomenon, confirmed by successive reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Kyoto Protocol, adopted in 1997, reinforced the Convention. A bona fide international programme aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the Kyoto Protocol went into force in February 2005. It constitutes the first legally binding programme and sets as an objective, for industrialised countries and as of 2008-2012, a 5.2% reduction in the level of greenhouse gas emissions compared to the 1990 levels, in particular for carbon dioxide, the gas emitted by the fossil fuels burned in electrical plants, factories and vehicles.

France has been working relentlessly to go even further, to “re-commit” non-signatory countries to the Protocol and to assist emerging countries, as demonstrated at the G8 Summit of heads of government and state in Gleneagles, Scotland, in July 2005. This readiness to set an example has been reflected at the national level with the implementation of the Climate Plan in 2004 and the adoption of the July 13, 2005 energy policy law, as well as through reinforced legislation in the area of energy control and the diversification of France’s energy portfolio. The construction of France’s largest offshore wind park, authorised to produce electricity of the coast of Seine-Maritime, further illustrates this commitment.

Mélina Gassi

* The megawatt (MW) is a unit for measuring power equal to one million watts.
** According to the latest European statistics published by the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA).
*** Adopted at the G8 Sea Island Summit in 2004, the 3R Initiative (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) was formally launched in Tokyo in April 2005.

Last updated: 22.06.2006