In recent years, support for the wind power sector has represented a burden on State finances, but due to the sharp rise in market prices due to the war in Ukraine and the low availability of EDF power plants, the Wind energy is now less expensive than market prices and therefore contributes positively to the state budget.
How and where would it be possible to develop more wind farms than we need in this period, taking into account local opposition to the installation of wind turbines?
In this study, find where onshore wind turbines are installed in France today, and which municipalities, regions and departments have the most.
Among other findings, it is worth noting that:
- The Hauts-de-France are by far the region with the most wind turbines installed (1), with a total installed power of 863 MW;
- The Grand-Est is also well represented with 1.846 turbines installed and a total power of 3.967 MW;
- Far behind, with 872 wind turbines (1.566 MW installed), Occitania complete this podium;
- The strength and regularity of the winds in these regions seem to be the primary criterion for explaining this distribution; the available land (low population density, few farms, etc.) is another avenue to consider.
This strong inequality in the distribution of wind turbines on the territory is a factor in explaining local opposition to the installation of new wind farms.