Status: 09/27/2022 4:21 p.m
France has a lot of catching up to do when it comes to wind energy compared to Germany. President Macron now wants to make up for this and have more offshore wind farms built. Producers of green hydrogen also want to benefit from this.
It’s a very, very large champagne bottle that shatters on the towering, bright yellow electrolysis container on this sunny day. Matthieu Guesné visibly swung it proudly over the water in the Saint Nazaire harbour. The founder of the hydrogen startup LHYFE has been working towards this moment for five years.
His company wants an electrolyser take it out to sea and connect it to the wind turbines there to later produce green hydrogen on an industrial scale. “We use seawater for electrolysis, turn it into hydrogen and bring it to shore through a pipeline. No one in the world has ever made an electrolyser float,” says Guesné happily.
The sea as an opportunity and a challenge
However, it will still be a few years before it can be used industrially. First of all, there are tests: for example to clarify how the electrolysis container can be equipped for the rough weather with waves up to 15 meters high. So it’s a dream of the future, but one that French President Emmanuel Macron likes to hear.
He had entered the Bay of Saint-Nazaire himself that day and set out to sea. The mission: to inaugurate the country’s first offshore wind farm. A powerful visual framework for his announcement that he wants to double the pace of the expansion of renewable energies. In 2050, according to Macron, “we want to generate 40 gigawatts of electricity from offshore wind power. We need 50 wind farms at sea for this.”
long processes
You could also say: In France, hectic is breaking out on the horizon. Because in a European comparison, the country is lagging behind: France’s first 81 offshore wind turbines are now in operation off Saint-Nazaire – in Germany there are already 1,500. While in Germany it takes six years from the decision to commissioning, in Saint-Nazaire it has lasted almost eleven years.
In the midst of the wind farm missionaries celebrating on this day, Macron explains how he wants to accelerate the expansion of renewables: A new law aims to do three things – “simplify procedures, identify suitable locations, share the added value”.
Residents living near wind power or solar systems are offered the prospect of a lower electricity price. In addition, Macron announced that the government will change the rules on court proceedings. In the event of a legal dispute, the respective instances would have to be appealed to within ten months: “In this way we reduce the total duration of the proceedings to a maximum of two and a half years.”
Waiting for action
The hydrogen visionaries at LHYFE welcome the President’s new strategy and are hoping for plenty of funding for the projects that the company is running across Europe: “Imagine that you can produce as much hydrogen as you need with four percent of the European sea area, to completely replace Russian gas.”
Whether this calculation works out depends on many factors. Among other things, whether renewable energies in France are really getting the boost that Macron is promising.
France is stepping on the gas when it comes to expanding renewables
Julia Borutta, ARD Paris, September 25, 2022 4:00 p.m