The government announces immediate measures to accelerate the expansion of renewable energies
Energy Transition Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher announced a first set of regulatory measures on Thursday 28 July” Emergency “ to accelerate the expansion of renewable energies that ensure this “Almost 20% of electricity demand in 2022” from resources available in France.
Several renewable energy generation projects are currently threatened by rising construction costs, which is not the case “No longer covered by the state-guaranteed purchase price for electricity or biomethane”, the ministry said in a statement. This affects 6 to 7 gigawatts (GW) for solar projects and 5 to 6 GW for wind power.
The first measures to be published in Official Newspaper in the coming days, should allow projects to be released or some of them to be accelerated ahead of winter, a period of expected tensions in energy supplies due to the consequences of the war in Ukraine.
Further measures until the end of the summer
The first allows fast-paced projects to sell their electricity at high market prices for eighteen months before tender contracts take effect. This is intended to compensate for the additional costs, according to the ministry.
A second measure is to have the price of resold energy indexed so that it better reflects the cost increase of future projects subject to tariff windows, while a third is to freeze the initially planned reduction in tariffs for photovoltaic buildings.
After all, projects that have responded to tenders can increase their capacity by 40% without explanation before going live. Biomethane production plant projects will benefit from additional time to deal with the challenges associated with the health crisis and supply challenges.
Further regulatory measures for renewable electricity or gas are expected by the end of the summer, in addition to a broader law to accelerate renewable energy deployment.
