Renewable Energy Law: supermarkets want help to be able to adapt

Bringing together all the distribution players (such as Carrefour, Decathlon, E. Leclerc, Intermarché, Ikea, Metro or Picard) to act on energy or environmental issues, Perifem warns of the "heavy economic consequences" of the ENR law, which aims to make France catch up on its great delay in renewable energies. But the federation does not dispute the substance.

In detail, she notes that "the installation of photovoltaic shades" could concern "all the parking spaces for car parks of more than 1.500 square meters", against 2.500 provided for in the text before the parliamentary debate. This has the effect of expanding the system to 21.000 stores affected by the obligation.

“The obligations on new sites have also become more demanding with an obligation to cover 50% of the roof with photovoltaic panels by 2027 (compared to 30% previously), and this retroactively for all existing roofs”, Perifem said again.

According to professionals, these measures will cost the sector 2 euros each year, an amount which, for the little ones, could be prohibitive. Perifem therefore asks for "incentive measures", such as loan assistance, "an additional amortization device" or even "the use of energy saving certificates".

In addition, the energy produced by the photovoltaic panels on certain supermarket car parks "will exceed the specific needs of the sites", the production sometimes exceeding "the threshold of obligation to purchase", beyond which "the conditions of sale of the surplus energy produced are unclear and difficult to implement".

Last point, the "difficult implementation of certain aspects of the law" according to Perifem, which evokes "technical constraints applying to car parks or roofs" which are not taken into account. The federation also recalls that the obligation to cover car parks must "coexist with the obligations of diversity and revegetation of car parks, but also of water infiltration in the soil".

The ENR law intends to meet the objective set by President Emmanuel Macron for 2050 to multiply by ten the production capacity of solar energy to exceed 100 GW and to deploy 50 wind farms at sea to reach 40 GW.