By Anders Lorenzen

The Economy Minister of France has targeted a huge offshore wind development capacity expansion.

Bruno Le Maire outlined the French government’s strategy for deploying 45 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind power by 2050. This is an increase of 5 GW from the 40 GW target unveiled last year.

The minister pointed out that with three offshore wind farms already connected, the country is on track to reach 4 GW by 2030, and to reach 18 GW by 2035.

15 projects

In order to reach the 2035 target,15 projects are in the pipeline. Of those, three are in the process of being connected, three are planned for deployment before 2031, and nine are going through tendering. Le Maire added an additional 10 GW for tenders is also anticipated. 

The minister is keen for France to play its part, in both making offshore wind power more competitive and efficient, and in making sure it can be installed in six years.  And at least half of the projects grow the European industry. This while at the same time being at the forefront of innovation, by allowing wind farms to be more powerful and able to be positioned further offshore.

There is a growing concern about competition from Asia and in particular China when it comes to advancing offshore wind technology.  In the past few years, Europe’s largest offshore wind developers have been in dire financial trouble dealing with this competition. 

The French offshore wind targets are a key component of the overall European Union (EU) targets to reach 42.5% of renewable energy share in final energy consumption by 2030.

At the close of 2023, the EU’s member states had a combined installed capacity of around 19 GW of offshore wind power, with many more GW in either the tendering, planning or development phase.

A coalition of European countries, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, France, the UK, Norway, Ireland and Luxembourg have set a joint target of 120 GW of offshore wind in the North Sea by 2030. This is to rise to 300 GW by 2050. The Baltic Sea countries, Germany, Poland, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia have committed to install 20 GW by 2030 and 93 GW by 2050.