France: the new law drastically reduces targets for renewable energy sources in favor of nuclear energy.

The French government will this week by decree adopt a new energy law (PPE) that brings a radical turn in the national strategy. After years of internal disputes, official Paris has decided to significantly reduce targets for wind and solar energy, while at the same time the mandate of the state giant EDF to shut down nuclear reactors has been abolished

Finance Minister Roland Lescure said that it is time to put an end to the internal clashes between lobbies for renewable energy (RE) and the nuclear sector. The key changes brought by the new law include:

• Abolition of the shutdown decision: the previous plan to shut down 14 nuclear reactors – which had been Emmanuel Macron's 2017 election pledge – has officially been canceled
• Increased production: the new framework requires EDF to increase production from the existing reactor fleet to 420 terawatt-hours per year by 2035
• Reduction of RE quotas: targets for solar energy have been reduced from the planned 100 GW to a maximum of 80 GW by 2035. A similar fate has befallen land- and offshore wind farms, whose planned capacities have been significantly reduced

Protection of EDF from market pressure

This move comes as direct support to the EDF company, which in recent years has been struggling with low electricity prices on the European market. An excessive amount of subsidized energy from wind and solar in Europe occasionally drives prices down to levels that render nuclear reactors economically unsustainable, forcing them to reduce power, making them less efficient and consequently reducing overall economic viability. By reducing the targets for renewable energy, France aims to protect the stability of its nuclear fleet, which Lescure calls the “backbone of the electricity system”.

Kritike i dekarbonizacija

While EDF director Bernard Fontana welcomes the law as a necessary step toward achieving the company's goals, environmental organizations such as Greenpeace harshly criticize this move, calling it a “decade-long step backward” in the vision of the energy transition. 

Incidentally, the first new reactor in the announced series of at least six units (EPR2 – reactors cooled and moderated by light water) is expected to be commissioned in the second half of the next decade.