France plans to build 50 offshore wind farms totalling 40GW by 2050, French President Emmanuel Macron has announced as part of a renewables push.
The country had previously set out only to tender 8.75GW of offshore wind by 2028 in its 2020 Multiannual Energy Program.
Macron, who was speaking at a factory in the industrial town of Belfort on 10 February, said that in order to achieve the offshore wind target, the country will need a more detailed maritime planning to define suitable areas for wind development.
“We continue to develop industrial employment and investments” so that wind targets “are accompanied by job creation throughout our territory” he said.
Macron also plans to increase installed solar capacity to over 100GW by 2050.
He also said that onshore wind would be doubled by 2050 from the 18.5GW installed at the end of last year.
“(We need) to massively develop renewable energies simply because it is the only way to meet our immediate electricity needs where it takes 15 years to build a nuclear reactor,” he said.
Nuclear will also be key to France’s decarbonisation strategy, as the country targets construction of 14 new nuclear plants by 2050.