The French Government and energy producers have reached an agreement to amend purchase contracts, which will allow the shutdown of offshore wind parks during periods of negative prices. According to France’s Ministry of Industry and Energy, the utility-scale offshore wind parks of Fécamp, Saint-Nazaire and Saint-Brieuc have signed amendments to their electricity purchase contracts, which allow them to request the shutdown of all or part of the park’s production during periods of negative prices.
The ministry said the contracts signed by these first wind parks date back to the 2010s and are no longer suited to current market conditions. They were encouraged to produce at their maximum capacity regardless of the market price, since they benefited from a fixed feed-in tariff. Due to the purchase obligation, even in periods of negative prices, the entire production of the wind parks was therefore purchased at the price fixed by the contract, and resold on the markets at a negative price.
The ministry also said that first shutdowns linked to the application of these contracts were successfully carried out in early May 2025.
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