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ENVIRONMENT

France opens up first offshore windfarm – but will more follow?

President Emmanuel Macron inaugurated France’s first offshore windfarm off the coast of Saint-Nazaire on Thursday as he seeks to accelerate renewable energy supply and improve energy security.

Published: 22 September 2022 10:15 CEST
France opens up first offshore windfarm - but will more follow?
A turbine in the offshore windfarm near Saint-Nazaire under construction earlier this year. (Photo: Sebastien Salom-Gomis / AFP)

The 80 turbines will enter full service by the end of the year, and Macron has previously set a goal of about 50 offshore windfarms “providing up to 40 gigawatts” in service by 2050.

Following the belated inauguration of the country’s first offshore windfarm, another at Fécamp is due to start generating power in 2023. Sites in Saint-Brieuc, Fécamp and Courseulles-sur-Mer are set to enter service in 2024.

But France has a long way to go to meet the President’s target, and to catch up with its European neighbours. Before the Saint-Nazaire wind farm (‘parc éolien’ – en français), France had only one floating offshore wind farm off the coast of Le Croisic.

At Thursday’s inauguration event, Macron was to set out the “main lines” of a bill to accelerate France’s renewable energy programme, which will be presented to the Council of Ministers on Monday, September 26th.

READ ALSO France generates electricity from offshore wind farm for the first time

There is no doubt that renewable energy production in France is accelerating. On top of the 80 offshore turbines at Saint-Nazaire, just under 9,000 onshore turbines are currently producing electricity in France – eight years ago, around half that number of land-based turbines were operational. 

The first turbines in France were only installed in the 1990s – by which time countries like Germany and Denmark already had large-scale operations in place. 

More turbines would be in operation now in France, but for the lengthy planning process and appeals against projects, which have delayed construction for several years.

Hauts-de-France and Grand-Est, account for 50 percent of the wind-produced power in France. Île-de-France, Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur, and Corsica lag behind the other regions.

READ MORE: Energy shortages: What’s the problem with France’s nuclear industry?

In 2020, wind produced just eight percent of its electricity from wind, behind hydroelectric stations, while nuclear power generated nearly 70 percent of the country’s electricity.

Wind power accounted for 20 percent of electricity generation in Germany and Spain, while the UK was at 30 percent in 2020, Portugal produced 40 percent, and Denmark’s windfarms met 60 percent of the country’s electricity needs.

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ENVIRONMENT

How likely are droughts and water restrictions in France in summer 2024?

Much of France has faced severe flooding this winter, but other areas already face water restrictions, and there's an extra variable in store global weather patterns play their part

Published: 12 April 2024 17:50 CEST
How likely are droughts and water restrictions in France in summer 2024?

France’s Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières (BRGM) most recent report, in early March, revealed that the water table in France was ‘satisfactory over a large part of the country’, with levels above normal for the time of year in 46 percent of the country’s underground aquifers.

It warned at the time, however, that levels were low to very low in parts of Alsace, as well as in the Saône corridor and areas of Languedoc, from the south of the Massif Central to the coast, and the Roussillon area of southwest France.

March, too, was a wet month across the bulk of France – it was the fifth wettest since records began in 1958, according to national forecaster Météo-France.

Crucially however, most of the rain falling on the ground in France now will be gobbled up by vegetation, which means that very little water will make it through to aquifers. The groundwater recharge period, when underground water tables are refilled, is now over until late autumn 2024.

Basically, the water table is about as high as it’s going to get this summer.

Which brings us back to the weather.

Long-range forecasts are notoriously inaccurate but after a mild, wet winter, forecasters expect another dry, warm summer overall, following a cooler-than-normal and occasionally wet spring.

April, for example, is set to be marked by cool spells, though, for the April-May-June quarter as a whole, temperatures are expected to remain above seasonal averages. Forecasters warn that a higher-than-usual number of Spring storms could affect the south-east of the country.

Long-range models suggest, however, that June could be hot and dry, with consequences for agriculture – though groundwater levels should be high enough to cope comfortably.

Forecasting further into the summer is even less certain than normal because – over in the Pacific – El Nino is expected to be replaced by La Nina much faster than normal, making weather prediction difficult. 

The consensus is, however, that the cooling effect of La Nina will not be felt until much later in the year. That said, it will have a more immediate effect on weather activity in the North Atlantic. Forecasters are already predicting a record-breaking hurricane season – which will have an effect on French weather patterns.

Between May and July, forecast temperatures in France are likely to remain 1C to 2C above seasonal averages. Precipitation is expected to be fairly close to average, with a tendency for thunderstorms, especially in the south.

Forecast models predict a wet end to April, a fine and dry May, a hot and occasionally thundery June, and a warmer-than-normal July punctuated by thunderstorms – though some forecasts suggest more mixed weather in the north in the seventh month.

With water tables currently well recharged, the national water situation for the summer is, right now, giving experts little cause for concern. 

Thunderstorms are expected to provide occasional watering to limit surface drought, which is always possible even if water tables are well recharged. The summer of 2024 therefore looks set to be different from recent droughts. 

However, this is not to say water restrictions are not impossible, or even unlikely. In certain areas, notably the Aude and Pyrénées-Orientales, where rainfall has been well below average for years, the situation is already serious.

While the rest of the country saw high rainfall in March, these two départements were recording 50 percent less rain than normal.

These areas are already facing a range of water restrictions. To find out whether restrictions are in place where you live, consult the Vigieau website, which offers information on a national, regional and local level.

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