Frisky plans of France to outfit the Renewable Goal

France is taking strategic leads to spur its renewable energy goals and also sought commitments to be the first country to issue “green bonds” encouraging green energy.

Recently, French President Francois Hollande has also asserted that that the country’s oldest nuclear power plant, Fessenheim which sits near the German and Swiss borders would be closed.

Also at the conference, Environment Minister Segolene Royal said a roadmap for France’s energy transition up to 2023 would be published on Wednesday, with higher objectives than initially planned.

She said the number of wind farms would double in France, while electricity obtained from solar energy would triple.

The amount of renewable energy sources used for heat production would increase by over 50 percent.

Hollande said that to achieve the goal of decreasing the share of nuclear energy in electricity production from 75 percent to 50 percent by 2025 “renewables must be increased even faster.”

Paving the green way, he also announced that France would be the first country to issue “green bonds”, which up until now have only been issued by companies or finance institutions such as the World Bank.

“Paris could become the leader in green finance,” said Pascal Canfin of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in France.

Hollande also announced that energy giant EDF would close several nuclear power stations from 2018, while others will see their lives extended.

He said the first to close would be Fessenheim, which Germany complained earlier this year was, at nearly 40-years-old, “too old to still be in operation”.

Hollande had pledged to close Fessenheim by the end of his five-year term in 2017.

Hollande was speaking at a national environment conference in Paris, where he sought to further carve out his country’s role as a leader in energy transition after the signing of a global climate pact in Paris in December.

France has 19 nuclear power stations made up of 58 nuclear reactors.