The average tariff awarded in the latest French onshore wind tender was €59.50/MWh – fractionally down on the roughly €59.58/MWh recorded in October 2020.
A total of 49 projects were filed, offering a combined 1,065 MW – more than twice than the capacity awarded.
The lion’s share of the auction went to two large projects – EDF Renewables and the Blackrock Windvision consortium’s 226MW Parc Eolien Mont des 4 Faux in the Ardennes and Boralex’s 68MW Parc éolien de La Forêt de Lanouée in Brittany.
Together, they made up 56% of the overall volume awarded in France’s seventh onshore wind tender. The remainder comprised four medium-sized developments, each of around 30MW capacity and nine smaller projects.
Five of the projects totalling 49.85MW will be built in the Hauts-de-France region, with the Grand-Est region (two projects for 254.8MW, Occitanie (two projects, 42.45MW), Nouvelle-Aquitaine (two projects, 20.6MW) and Central-val de Loire (two projects, 69.64MW) hosting the remainder.
Two companies were awarded contracts for the first time in French tenders – Ostwind and Blackrock-Windvision. Among the twelve winners, 10 are either utilities or independent power producers.
All the projects need to be built within 36 months and commissioned by March 2024.
The government published a draft energy plan in January 2019 targeting 35.6GW of onshore wind capacity by 2028, up from about 16.54GW today. The next and last wind auction based on the existing tender specifications is scheduled for April 2021, with 925MW being made available.
