By America Hernandez
(Reuters) -TotalEnergies has won a tender to develop and build a 1.5 gigawatt wind farm off the coast of Normandy in a consortium with Germany’s RWE, marking France’s largest such project to date.
The deal, a last-minute award by the outgoing government which collapsed this month before publishing crucial legislation to launch future energy tenders, allows TotalEnergies to strengthen its renewable energy portfolio in France, a market the company has previously deemed less competitive due to slow permitting processes compared to Britain and Germany.
It also allows France, which lags behind European Union renewable energy targets, to inch toward its offshore wind capacity aim to reach 45 gigawatts (GW) by 2050, up from the current 1.5 GW, but progress has been hampered by the absence of a revised energy planning law (PPE) to guide future tenders.
“TotalEnergies is proud to be French and invest in France, but in effect a new PPE is necessary to reassure industry players and launch new tenders,” Isabelle Patrier, head of TotalEnergies France, told journalists at a Wednesday press briefing.
Consortium partner RWE has requested permission to exit the project, which Total said was for strategic reasons.
RWE did not respond to a request for comment.
FIRST FRENCH OFFSHORE WIN
The offshore wind award is Total’s first in France, where most previous tenders have gone to state-owned EDF or partially-state-owned Engie .
Of Total’s 25 GW of gross renewable capacity, just 2 GW are in France, although that will rise to 4 GW by 2030.
The project represents an investment of 4.5 billion euros ($5.29 billion) excluding grid connection costs, Total said, with the tariff set by the state to be 66 euros per megawatt-hour, a sharp increase from previous tenders, which Total said reflected a 50% rise in construction costs.
The wind farm would produce six terawatt-hours of electricity annually, supplying the equivalent of 1 million households, the French government said separately.
Total said it expects to make a final investment decision in early 2029, with power production to begin in 2033.
Patrier said Total is able to build the project alone, but will seek a new partner.
“We don’t imagine not being able to find a new partner if RWE leaves, because we know certain developers are already interested in the project,” she said.
($1 = 0.8510 euros)
(Reporting by Gianluca Lo Nostro in Gdansk, America Hernandez in Paris, Chris Steitz in Berlin; Editing by Joe Bavier, Bernadette Baum and Louise Heavens)
