France delays nuclear phase-out and plans to shut down 14 reactors by 2035

The French government has unveiled the first version of the revised PPE energy plan (Programmation pluriannuelle de l’énergie), which has two main targets: tackling climate change by cutting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and diversifying the electricity mix by reducing the country's dependence on nuclear power.



The PPE will postpone the gradual phase-out of nuclear energy by a decade: the share of nuclear power in the French power generation mix is now slated to drop below the 50% threshold by 2035. The government currently plans to shut down 14 nuclear reactors rated 900 MW each between 2020 and 2035, including France's two oldest reactors in Fessenheim by 2020, and between 4 and 6 units by 2030. Moreover, there will be no decision on the building of any new EPR nuclear reactor project before at least 2021.



Another core objective of the updated policy is the entire decarbonisation of the domestic energy sector by 2050. Efforts will be made to reduce energy consumption and to improve energy efficiency, through building insulation and equipment renewal, less-consuming vehicles, and recycling in the industrial sector. In the power sector, all coal-fired power plants will be shut down by 2022.



The government also announced future investments of €7-8bn/year to support the development of renewable energies, which is much more than the current €5bn/year. Domestic photovoltaic (PV) capacity will more than quintuple to 40 GW, while onshore wind capacity will more than double from 14 GW to 35 GW by 2028. Another 2.5 GW of offshore wind projects will be deployed on top of the 3 GW currently planned. These new capacities should increase solar PV power generation fivefold and triple onshore wind generation. The government will also focus on developing geothermal and biogas.



The revised PPE is only a draft and it will be submitted to several consultative bodies and authorities in the coming months. Meanwhile, the 2015 Energy Transition Act (Loi de transition énergétique) will have to be amended to include the nuclear reduction target of 2035, compared with the previous objective of 2025. The final version of the PPE is slated for summer 2019.



The current PPE runs over the 2018-2028 period and was laid out in 2016 after the adoption of the 2015 Energy Transition Act, which aims to diversify the energy mix and to accelerate the development of renewables. It initially planned to and reduce the share of nuclear in the power mix from 75% to 50% by 2025. However, this latter objective was abandoned in November 2017.