France ‘omits’ renewable energy target in 2030 energy-climate plan

9 months ago 35

France’s draft national energy and climate plan (NECP), recently handed into the European Commission, fails to mention a renewable energy objective for 2030, referring instead to a “decarbonised” energy target incorporating nuclear power, contradicting the EU’s renewable energy directive.

Read the original French story here.

By June 2023, EU countries had to submit their updated draft NECPs for the 2021-2030 period to the European Commission. After some delay, most EU countries, including France, have now done so.

In these plans, each member state must define its strategy for achieving the EU’s 2030 climate and energy objectives, including when it comes to renewable energies.

Following the revision of the renewable energy directive (RED) in March this year, EU countries agreed to collectively ensure renewables account for 42.5% of the bloc’s final energy consumption by 2030.

To meet this collective goal, each EU country will be assigned an “indicative” non-binding target – to be defined in a separate regulation next year – calculated based on its GDP, its potential for wind and solar development and its level of interconnection with other countries.

Based on the methodology used to calculate the EU’s 2020 renewable goal, the objective for France should land somewhere between 46% and 50% of the country’s total energy consumption. At the time, this resulted in a 23% target for France to be attained by 2020 – an objective Paris never met.

However, the French NECP does not include a percentage range for renewable energies, contrary to other EU countries like Germany (40%), Austria (46%-50%), or even pro-nuclear countries like Czechia (30%), Romania (34%) and Slovakia (34.4%).

Instead, France defined a “decarbonised energy” target corresponding to a 58% share of its final energy consumption, thus conflating renewables and nuclear in the same calculation.

In doing so, France appears to dodge the EU’s renewable energy directive, which refers to renewables as a percentage of final energy consumption.

Section from the French NECP for 2021-2030, page 8

Phasing out fossil fuels: The priority for Paris

To justify its move, the draft French NECP says its “priority” is not to develop renewables but “to meet the targets for phasing out fossil fuels”.

“The French strategy makes it possible to achieve levels of only 42% fossil energy in the energy mix in 2030 and 29% in 2035 (including a phase-out of the residual share of coal in the electricity mix from 2027)”, the document states.

“It’s important to remember that our priority in Europe must continue to be to move away from fossil fuels,” says French Energy Transition Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher.

At the same time, “France is committed to meeting the European target of 42.5% renewable energy in the European energy mix by 2030”, the minister’s office insists.

In this respect, the NECP points out that “the share of renewable energies in final energy consumption has been increased to 20.7% in 2022, marking a clear acceleration compared to 2021 (+1.3%), and placing France at a level comparable to its main European partners, notably Germany”.

“We expect the European Commission to take full account of these efforts,” the minister’s office adds.

Measures for renewables

Despite the missing renewable energy target, the French plan does include provisions for wind and solar power, with an objective of 54 to 60 GW of photovoltaic capacity installed by 2030-2035.

Still, the absence of a percentage for renewables raises suspicions among environmental groups.

“If the share of renewable energies is not explicit, it’s because the government doesn’t want it to appear,” said Anne Bringault from Climate Action Network France.

In Brussels, the European Commission adopted a cautious stance for the time being and refrained from making sweeping comments.

“The Commission is currently assessing the updated draft plans, in particular, to determine whether the member states have included the contributions and measures required to collectively achieve the EU’s updated renewable energy targets for 2030,” a spokesperson told Euractiv.

The executive “will issue recommendations based on this assessment,” the spokesperson added, without specifying whether or not the French plan is admissible in the absence of renewable targets expressed as a percentage.

The spokesperson concluded that EU countries must “missing submit their final updated NECPs by 30 June 2024, taking account of the Commission’s recommendations,” thus preventing Paris from making the necessary adjustments.