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In the field of renewable energies, offshore or offshore wind turbines seem to have a hard time finding a place in France. Described by some environmental associations, this green energy could yet become a source of electricity in its own right.
Some 6,000 wind turbines on French soil and only one floating wind turbine, a prototype, installed off Nantes in 2018. The seas of France are far from allowing the French to provide electricity. The country has the second largest maritime area in the world, with 11 million square kilometers of maritime area and four maritime facades in metropolitan France. The potential is therefore enormous, but the multiple administrative recourses and the fears of certain environmental associations slow many projects.
In mid-June, the Minister of Ecological Transition François de Rugy, visiting Saint-Nazaire, officially launched the project of the first wind farm at sea. Some 80 wind turbines should produce electricity by 2022 off Saint Nazaire. Another event to date is the creation of the Saint-Brieuc wind farm in Brittany. On July 24, the Council of State rejected two appeals against this wind farm which will be located about 16 km from the nearest coast and will include 62 wind turbines of 216 m high.
Fears about the impact on wildlife
" It's unforgivable. Only incompetent people speak on the subject. The ecologists who defend the wind on the French coast are political ecology ", insists the environmental association Keep the caps for which the reports praising the wind are issued in partnership with the wind developers. For the environmental association, it is necessary to differentiate the waters where the wind turbines are located: the Baltic and North Seas are already very polluted (by the maritime traffic, the remnants of the chemical weapons of wars 14-18 and 39-45, etc.), having funds with little fish, putting wind turbines on them does not change much.
Worse according to the association, the park of Saint-Brieuc, like the other ongoing projects on the territory, will be installed on artisanal fishing areas, mainly scallop and lobster trap fishing. Because of waves and noise in the seabed, but also electromagnetic fields, no fauna can survive. It will be the destruction of an entire ecosystem.
Where is the truth ?
" Pressure groups use ecological pseudo-arguments to derail projects, " says Antoine Carlier, a researcher at the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea (Ifremer). For the past ten years, the researcher has been monitoring all that is known in Europe about the impacts of wind turbine developments at sea. " There are more than 4,000 wind turbines installed in the North Sea, if there were serious impacts, we would have seen, we would have enough perspective. In Denmark, for example, parks have already been dismantled, having completed their life cycle of around 25 years, and no negative impact on wildlife has emerged.
" First of all, you have to differentiate between the construction phase and the operating phase ," says Paul Neau, manager of the Abies renewable energy and environmental design office, who has, among other things, carried out the impact study on the environment (environmental assessments) of the Dieppe-Le Tréport project.
Indeed, studies show that the main potential impact concerns marine mammals, which are disturbed by noise during construction, and not fish or crustaceans. And the wind energy specialist explain: during the planting phase of a wind turbine that lasts less than a month, air bubble curtains are installed around the site to mitigate the spread of sound waves towards mammals who leave the yard but come back.
" When we put a wind turbine, continues Antoine Carlier, we actually destroy the wildlife that is at the bottom. But we must put this destruction in a spatial context, which remains extremely limited to a few square meters per wind turbine. And the researcher explains that experiments are being done on the impact of submarine cables (bringing electricity back to shore) on baby lobsters. The results show that the latter is zero both on behavior and on the mortality rate.
Implementing a wind farm, according to specialists and scientists, can also create an artificial reef. " Some people may be apprehensive, that's normal, " says Paul Neau, but positive feedback is numerous at the European level. When a park is in place, notes Antoine Carlier, and that it is closed to large-scale fishing, there is irrefutable evidence that the marine environment is better than before.
In France, anyway, fishermen have already negotiated to navigate the park. The wind turbine masts will be aligned so that the fishermen can continue their work and flirt between the wind turbine aisles.
As for the transformation of the landscape, the questions are legitimate. The visual impact is subjective, it can be both positive and negative. In France, many associations are opposed to wind farms for this reason. In Copenhagen, Denmark, the Middelgrunden wind farm is located just 3 kilometers from the city of one million inhabitants, it occupies 30% of the visual field from the capital and is therefore an integral part of the landscape.
European countries at the forefront
If France is "late" in the field of marine wind, it is " because there is zero political will, and this is the only explanation," notes Paul Neau, also a member of the association negaWatt experts . Countries that have political will do it. The United Kingdom alone has 2,000 offshore wind turbines. Germany (1,500 wind turbines) and the Netherlands are also very advanced in the field. In the North Sea, wind turbines produce the equivalent of 18 EPR-type nuclear power plants. Another explanation according to the Ifremer researcher, " the nuclear lobby is such that we have, for years, a step forward, two steps back ."
However, in 2050, according to Paul Neau, to meet the electrical needs of the French, it would take 17,000 offshore wind turbines. And the French coast does not lack space, " you have to be north of La Rochelle to have consistent wind speeds ." Not to mention the floating wind. It is still in its infancy, but it makes it possible to position parks far more offshore, or even in the Mediterranean. And then we must not forget that with marine wind, " the day when there is a problem, we can remove the installation ." As such, since the disaster of Fukushima, Japan has started to marine wind ...
In addition, offshore wind is much cheaper than all other means of electricity production (coal, oil, gas and nuclear). A fleet of about one hundred wind turbines cost about 2 billion euros, one kilometer of cable a million. Thus, wind power, just by the cost aspect, will inexorably develop.