Is it a bad idea to rely on wind power when France aims to achieve carbon neutrality in 2050? This is the meaning of a long Facebook post, which warns people who would like to rent land to install wind turbines. This post
cost alert the dismantling of these installations, which would be the responsibility of the owner of the land, and not the company that installs them.
The anonymous author of the post argues that the cost of dismantling a wind turbine “80 meters high” would be 450,000 euros, an amount much higher than the 50,000 euros that the manufacturer must legally provide for the dismantling of a wind turbine of 2 MW. The author adds that this remains to be paid “to the owner of the land” and that, if the latter cannot pay, “the State turns against the owner, then against the municipality”. The remainder of the charge would therefore ultimately revert to the municipalities, including the smallest, which could not bear such a charge.
This message, published in August 2020, has been shared more than 37,000 times and continues to circulate, more than a year after its publication. It would have been written by an organic farmer from Auvergne, without knowing either her name or the town where she would be installed. It was already circulating on the Internet in 2019. 20 minutes review these statements.
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“There are many elements that are false in what is alleged, especially the fact that the dismantling could be the responsibility of the owner of the land, see his children”, advance with 20 minutes Louis de Fontenelle and Jean Gourdou, respectively lecturer and professor of public law at the University of Pau.
The dismantling of a wind turbine or a wind farm “is the responsibility of the operator”, and “in any case” can not be “the responsibility of the owner of the land, the operator of the plot or of the municipality ”, recall these specialists, who work on energy transitions.
The law obliges the operator to provide a minimum amount for dismantling
The Environmental Code plan well whether it is the operator of the site, or, if it is lacking, the parent company, who are responsible for “the dismantling and restoration of the site”.
To bear the cost of dismantling, the operator of the site must provision 50,000 euros for each 2 MW wind turbine, as well as 10,000 euros per additional MW, detail Louis de Fontenelle and Jean Gourdou. These sums are recorded in order to be able to be mobilized at the time of the shutdown of operations.
Operators go beyond the law to gain the support of residents
In addition, the State ensures that the operator is able to provide these sums: “This is one of the criteria that must be taken into account by the administration before authorizing the installation of a wind farm”, we indicates the Ministry of Ecological Transition.
To overcome possible opposition from local residents, operators will sometimes provide more money than what the law provides, note Louis de Fontenelle and Jean Gourdou: “most of the time, the operators themselves go further than the operators. legislative provisions to promote territorial appropriation of the project ”.
Are these amounts sufficient? Dismantling a wind turbine costs between 30,000 and 120,000 euros, had indicated in 2019 Charles Lhermitte, then vice-president of France Wind Energy, during a hearing at the National Assembly. We are far, therefore, from the 450,000 euros advanced in the viral message.
If the cost of dismantling exceeds 50,000 euros, the remaining amount is “largely financed” by the recycling of several components of the wind turbine, report Louis de Fontenelle and Jean Gourdou. These materials “are valuable and will bring in money when they are sold”, add the researchers. And to list: “it can be copper, steel …”.
Finally, a last possibility for a site at the end of operation is “the repowering, that is to say the takeover of a site to restart a cycle of several years of wind power production. This recovery is accompanied by a change of equipment.
Mistrust, therefore, on the content of this viral message on Facebook. The two researchers see it as “an anti-wind energy communication strategy. This message “raises a more general issue, which is that of the territorial appropriation of wind power”. Specialists note that “there is [dans l’éolien], more than in other sectors besides, citizen collectives which are structured and which use various arguments, sometimes fallacious, to counter a project ”. Oppositions that are also transposed on the Internet.