A wind farm.
Drawing.
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Franck Lodi - Sipa
The Harris Interactive polling institute published on Wednesday a survey on the perception of wind energy by the French on behalf of France Energie Eolienne (FEE), the professional association of the sector.
76% of French people say they have a good image of wind power in France, a stable percentage compared to the previous study on the subject, published in 2018. And this “while in two years, wind power has grown a lot. deployed on the territory ”, indicates the FEE.
However, only 41% of French people believe that the impact of wind energy is minimal on the landscape.
An obstacle for the future, while the multi-year energy program provides for a strong boom in wind power by 2028.
This is one of the brakes pointed out to explain the delay in the development of wind energy in France: the almost systematic legal action against wind farm projects.
But does this mean that the French have a grudge against wind power?
Not if we are to believe the survey published this Wednesday morning by the Harris Interactive polling institute for France Energie Eolienne (FEE), an association of professionals in the sector.
The study looked at the perception of wind energy by the French by polling two representative panels of society of people aged 18 and over.
The first was drawn from the general public, and the second from the municipalities located less than 5 km from a wind turbine.
"76% favorable opinion, even among residents"
Result: 76% of French people have a good image of wind power, a percentage that climbs to 91% for 18-34 year olds.
"Above all, we remain at 76% of good image among the residents", indicates Nicolas Wolff, president of FEE.
Already in 2018, Harris Interactive had published a similar study on behalf of FEE.
73% of French people said they had a "good image" of wind power.
On the other hand, at the time, 80% of those close to wind farms agreed with this opinion, four points more than in the study published on Wednesday.
The sign of less acceptability of wind power today among local residents?
"In two years, many wind farms have emerged in the region, with 3,000 megawatts of additional installed power," continues Nicolas Wolff.
It was then expected that the share of favorable opinions would drop a little among residents.
But four points, that's still an insignificant drop.
France Wind Energy prefers to highlight the major trends which remain stable.
"Wind power retains a favorable opinion with three quarters of the French when the share of those who have a" very unfavorable "opinion remains around 6%", summarizes Nicolas Wolff.
Wind after solar?
It remains to be seen what place wind power should play in the energy transition.
79% of respondents say that this energy must play an important role.
It is less than solar (92%), hydroelectricity (87%), geothermal energy (84%), but more than biomass (73%) and nuclear (58%).
Moreover, if 76% of French people therefore have a good image of wind power, they are "only" 68% to see the installation of a wind turbine (or a wind farm) on their territory as a "good thing ”.
A stable figure compared to 2018, but which contrasts with the strongest support for solar.
83% of those polled say in any case that they would welcome the installation of a field of solar panels on their territory **.
This is because solar has the advantage of blending in better with the landscape.
Still according to the Harris Interactive study, only 41% of French people [44% of local residents] believe that wind energy has a minimal impact on the landscape.
A difficulty for the future?
"The consensus on wind power is clearly weakening in our country," noted Emmanuel Macron in Pau, in January 2020, during a round table on the theme of ecology in our territories.
“More and more people […] consider that their landscape is degraded,” he added.
However, officially, the government is banking on strong development in France.
With 8,000 wind turbines installed in the region for an installed capacity of 18,000 megawatts, FEE likes to remind people that wind power is the only renewable energy to meet the objectives set for it in the previous Multi-year Energy Program *.
Towards an accelerated deployment until 2028?
But the new PPE, adopted last year, sets the bar much higher by asking wind power to reach 38,000 megawatts of installed power in 2028. To keep up with this rate, “it will be necessary to install approximately 1,850 megawatts of powers installed each year, which represents roughly the installation of 600 new machines, calculates Nicolas Wolff.
We did not succeed last year, with 417 wind turbines installed.
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Blame it on Covid-19?
Not really.
"The problem is much more that of the too low number of authorizations for new projects that we manage to obtain", answers the president of FEE.
47% of French territory is now prohibited from wind power.
Most of these are military land and areas covered by radar that can be disturbed by wind turbines.
"There is a lot of work at the moment with the government to relax these standards and allow a more harmonized deployment of wind turbines on the territory [65% of the current fleet is concentrated in the Hauts de France, the Grand-Est region and the Occitanie] ”, indicates Nicolas Wolff.
The employment and efficiency map?
This conquest of new territories and the strong objectives set for 2028 could further degrade this consensus on wind power.
To remove the obstacle of the "landscape", France Energie Aolienne says it can rely on several strengths.
Starting with that of employment.
“In 2020, wind power has become the leading employer of renewable energies in France with more than 20,200 direct jobs,” says Nicolas Wolff.
Wind energy is also beginning to weigh in the French electricity mix.
With a little more than 8,000 wind turbines on the territory for an installed capacity of 18,000 megawatts, “it now exceeds 8% of French electricity production,” assures Nicolas Wolff.
And last week, particularly windy, we rose to 18% of the French electricity mix.
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This made the president of FEE say that the French are now aware of the efficiency of wind energy.
This is also another point surveyed by the Harris Interactive study: 67% of French people believe that wind power is an efficient energy that can produce a large amount of energy, and 76% see it as a good alternative fossil fuels and nuclear.
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* Revised every five years, the PPEs set the broad guidelines for France's energy policy for the next ten years.
** Note that only 28% of those polled would view the installation of a nuclear site on their territory favorably.
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