New nuclear reactors, offshore wind… what to remember from Macron’s announcements on energy

Emmanuel Macron, unveiled this Thursday in Belfort a vast recovery plan for civil nuclear power in France and more generally his energy strategy for France by 2030. He wants to set up 50 wind farms at sea for 2050 and also build by 2050 six new EPR nuclear reactors. Here’s what to remember from the president’s announcements.

“Doubling renewable energy production by 2030”. The outgoing president intends to double the production from renewable electric energies by 2030 and to “increase it even further by 2050”. We must “have the honesty to recognize that we have fallen behind,” said the quasi-presidential candidate. “We need to massively develop renewable energies”, he said, “simply because it is the only way to meet our immediate electricity needs where it takes 15 years to build a nuclear reactor”. “Special effort” will be devoted to solar “because it is cheaper and fits more easily into the landscape”, he explained, “ensuring a fair balance between rooftop installations and those on soils”.

Priority to offshore wind power. France is very late on this subject, since the first fleet is soon to come into service off Saint-Nazaire. The very ambitious objective is to “target around 40 gigawatts in service by 2050, i.e. around fifty offshore wind farms”, announced Emmanuel Macron.

Six new EPRs to come, eight under study. Emmanuel Macron wants the development of six new EPR reactors and eight are under study. This would bring the number of these “new generation” reactors to 14. They will be supplemented by small modular reactors (SMR) and “innovative” reactors producing less waste, with the objective of “25 gigawatts of new nuclear capacity of here 2050”, a “revolution” justified by the increase in electricity needs.

Extension of nuclear reactors. “I took two strong decisions: to extend all the nuclear reactors that can be extended, without giving up anything on safety” and “that no nuclear reactor in a state of production be closed in the future (…) except for a reason safety”, he announced the chairman, specifying that he had asked EDF “to study the conditions for extending beyond 50 years”.

What schedule? The Head of State announced “wide public consultation in the second quarter of 2022” on the subject of energy, and the start of construction in 2028 for the commissioning of the first reactor “by 2035”. In the coming weeks, the preparatory work will start: finalization of the design studies, referral to the national commission for public debate, definition of the locations, etc.