Some renewable energies risk restricting their production in France

©Eric Piermont/AFP

The manager of the Electricity Transmission Network (RTE), which is responsible for the public network, was forced this summer to disconnect certain renewable energy installations twice in order to avoid revealing flaws in its system. Although they have gone unnoticed, the disruptions caused by the French electricity network are increasing. The cause: the lack of flexibility in the supply of these energies in the event of a drop in demand.

“At 2 p.m., we needed to reduce production to maintain the frequency on the network, so we ordered a switch to the minimum power of four renewable parks for a total of 1,050 MW,” the manager states in its half-yearly report, in order to explain the sudden reduction made on July 16, even as the Olympic Games were being prepared, as reported by Les Echos.

This day marks a surprising reduction in the number of wind farms operating in the country. Among them, we mainly find farms in the Channel, but also the Cestas photovoltaic farm (Gironde), one of the most powerful in France. This sudden alert, requiring the immediate cessation of electricity transmission to the network, is unprecedented in France, although more common in other territories. Since these energies do not allow for easy adjustment in real time, unlike nuclear or hydraulic production, it becomes necessary to send alert signals cutting short any transmission to the network in order to adjust electricity production to demand, which becomes scarce in summer. However, this is enough to create imbalances depending on the size of the infrastructure and production capacities. RTE wants to put an end to the preferential regime by seeking to constrain all renewable installations greater than 10 or 20 megawatts as to their presence on this “last minute market”, as the media calls it.

Indeed, thanks to purchase obligation contracts, energy distributors such as EDF and ENGIE are forced to buy each kilowatt-hour from renewable energy. While negative prices are becoming commonplace on the electricity market, RTE is insisting on changing the payment system for these subsidies to a price guaranteed by the State. A system that the manager estimates benefits almost half of the installations in France.

A situation that is obviously opposed by developers of renewable parks, who want to keep this guarantee of resale, even if prices may plummet. This change suggests a possible drop in the profitability of these productions. A first attempt by the government was quickly aborted in 2023, trying to modify old contracts made in the solar sector that were said to be far too generous. A delicate subject that the new government risks bringing into a new poisoned chalice. 

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