French Energy Regulator Urges Offshore Wind Fixes After EDF Wins - gCaptain
French Energy Regulator Urges Offshore Wind Fixes After EDF Wins
Energy
UK Expects Over 100,000 Jobs in Offshore Wind by 2030
Close to 70,000 new jobs are expected to appear in the UK’s offshore wind industry by 2030, bringing the total to over 100,000. A recent report from the Offshore Wind...
Stock Photo:Tom Buysse/Shutterstock
(Bloomberg) —
France must overhaul its offshore wind farm auction process to stimulate investment and competition if it wants to hit President Emmanuel Macron’s target for 50 facilities by 2050, the country’s energy regulator said.
The government should launch a tender for 10 gigawatts of projects on multiple shores before 2027, and limit the ability for any bidder to sweep auctions, the body said. Consortiums led by state-owned Electricite de France SA won five out France’s eight offshore wind tenders since 2012, including the latest in March, prompting the regulator to express concerns about EDF’s grip over the supply chain.
Macron’s plan for 50 facilities would be a significant contribution to the nation’s plan to become carbon neutral by mid-century. However, France is lagging behind neighbors such as the UK, Germany and Belgium, with just one off-shore facility in operation and a handful of others under construction.
It is “fundamental to seek an optimal framework for the development of the industry,” Commission de Regulation de l’Energie said in a statement Wednesday. It also published the findings of a international benchmark of government auctions carried out by Compass Lexecon.
The French regulator’s recommendations included:
© 2023 Bloomberg L.P.
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Related Knowledge Center: Offshore wind energy
Over the next decade, U.S. offshore wind power is expected to grow from a single 30-megawatt wind farm off Rhode Island to more than 2,000 MW of capacity along the Atlantic Seaboard. There are contracts for wind power off the coasts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated the United States has over 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential, enough to power the country four times over.
The growth in part being spurred by state solicitations, including in New York, where then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) set a commitment of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035, and in Connecticut, where in June 2021, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed legislation authorizing the construction of 2,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
The offshore development is also being driven by an investment tax credit set to end in December 2019 and is equal to 12 percent of expenditures. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) have introduced a bill to extend the tax credit for up to eight years.
The Interior Department has held eight competitive lease sales that resulted in 15 offshore wind leases over 1.7 million acres that has the potential for 21 GW of capacity. In February 2022, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed a bidding process that realized $4.37 billion for 488,000 acres across six lease areas in federal waters off New York and New Jersey.
Projects have also been proposed off the Southeast coast, off California and Hawaii, and for the Great Lakes.