France to Vote on Landmark Renewable Energy Acceleration Bill Tomorrow

In September 2022, Emmanuel Macron, the President of France, introduced the Renewable Energy Acceleration Bill. The proposed Bill seeks to accelerate the deployment of renewables. Tomorrow, that is, January 10, will prove to be a significant day for France as its National Assembly will pronounce its vote on the Bill.

There have been a slew of attempts to add amendments to the Bill, which have invited controversy. Formerly, the French Senate added amendments to also include mayors and national heritage commission, granting them veto rights concerning wind projects while also imposing high minimum distance from shore requirements for the set up of offshore wind farms. However, they were finally eliminated. Experts agreed that this could have slowed down the development of wind energy development in the country.

France is the only country in the European Union that missed its 2020 renewable energy targets (as per EU’s RE directives). Having missed this goal, France is to now bear the penalty of €500m. That apart, the country will have to expend another €6-9bn annually in gas imports to make up for the shortfall.

WindEurope, an association that encourages the use of wind power in Europe, has said that the misses can largely be attributed to complicated and tedious permitting procedures.

As per the French Government, the country is a laggard when it comes to progress on renewable energy, “France is falling behind in the deployment of renewable energy production facilities compared to other European countries [and] it takes an average of five years of procedure to build a solar farm requiring a few months of work, seven years for a wind farm and ten years for an offshore wind farm.” Other parts of Europe, it maintains, are twice as fast.

In a nutshell, the Bill aims to facilitate administrative procedures by making them simpler to quicken projects, mobilise lands that are abandoned to augment installations. So far, the Bill has been seen in a positive light by industrialists who will be impacted by its passing.

India also recently passed the Energy Conservation Amendment Bill.