French Wind-Power Backlash Seen Pushing Capacity Growth to 20-Year Low

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(Bloomberg) — France is poised to add the smallest amount of wind-power capacity in 20 years as a backlash against turbines led by the anti-immigration National Rally party compounds political instability caused by a hung Parliament.

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Assuming the pace of turbine installations seen in the first half continues to year-end, France would add about 500 megawatts of capacity, the least since 2005, said Jules Nyssen, president of Syndicat des Energies Renouvelables, the country’s biggest renewable energy lobby. It’s the result of lack of direction in energy policy at the national level, he said during a press conference in Paris on Thursday.

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“Where you have many National Rally voters and politicians, where the region’s president is openly anti-wind, it’s very, very complicated” to obtain construction permits for wind farms from the authorities, said William Arkwright, who heads the lobby group’s wind committee. The pipeline of new projects is eroding “and commissioning is collapsing.”

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French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, appointed last week after his predecessor lost a confidence vote in Parliament, has yet to form a new cabinet and outline his policies, including on energy. A draft energy road map presented in March by the previous government outlined plans to boost solar and wind power and renewable fuels over the next 10 years to reduce the country’s carbon emissions, but hasn’t been enacted.  

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While solar installations are still growing quickly thanks to past project approvals, a slowdown is expected within two years as the outgoing government has reduced incentives for photovoltaic installations, said Xavier Daval, the head of the solar committee of the renewables lobby.

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“Some companies in the industry are failing, and this will continue,” Daval said. “Our companies have been feeling the heat from the political vacuum.” 

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