The Assembly has adopted a series of measures to accelerate the installation of offshore wind farms, by voting one of the key articles of the bill on renewable energy, despite the reluctance of part of the hemicycle.
As in the Senate, the question of a minimum distance for these large offshore wind turbines has animated the debates, but all amendments in this direction were rejected Monday and Tuesday, as hoped by the government.
Article 12, adopted by 98 votes to 65, aims to facilitate the launch of new projects through less complex consultation procedures with local stakeholders and establishes a planning of offshore wind power.
A first mapping of “priority” areas should be done in 2024.
They will have to be located as a priority in the exclusive economic zone, at least 22 km from the coast, but this is not an obligation, to the great displeasure of members from various benches.
Deputies Modem and Horizons, belonging to the presidential camp, have defended in vain amendments limiting to the maximum the possibility of installing wind turbines at a lesser distance, in order to guarantee their “social acceptability”.
The Communists, more reticent than the rest of the left on the subject, have also tried unsuccessfully to “sacralize the coastal strip” up to this limit of 22 km to “give a signal to fishermen” concerned, argued the deputy Sébastien Jumel.
As for the LR deputies, very hostile to the wind turbines which “disfigure” according to them the littoral, they tried in vain to push back them beyond the “horizon line” (50 km) or to reintroduce the limit of 40 km, to which their colleagues senators had finally given up.
The RN deputies have confirmed their total hostility to the “nightmare” of offshore wind turbines, which “trash a French heritage.
Several amendments aimed at banning wind turbines in marine protected areas were rejected. “This would simply put an end to the industry,” justified the rapporteur Pierre Cazeneuve (Renaissance).
Emmanuel Macron has set the goal of deploying 50 farms to reach 40 GW by 2050.
It is “the equivalent of 20 nuclear power plants” and “it will allow us to get out of our dependence on fossil fuels”, insisted during the debates the Minister of Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher.
“I have always had pro-nuclear positions”, but “it takes 15 years to build an EPR”, she stressed, praising with offshore wind “an abundant and cheap energy”.
The Minister assured that the planned consultation procedures will allow the apprehensions of the communities and certain economic actors, such as fishermen, to be taken into account.
