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Paris – The French tidal stream industry experienced a setback on Thursday that could be fatal, with Naval Energies announcing a halt to its investments in the sector, only a month and a half after inaugurating its first manufacturing plant in Cherbourg.
The company explained that it had drawn the consequences of the lack of public support for these technologies, the cost of which was considered too high, while local elected officials saw it as a promising job sector even though it was very late. in France.
Tidal turbines, underwater turbines that transform marine currents into electricity, have for many years been the source of hope for a clean energy source, without the visual nuisance caused by wind turbines. France has, off the Channel, half a day from Cherbourg, in the Raz Blanchard, the second most powerful marine current in the world and many other " deposits " off its coasts.
Naval Energies, a subsidiary of the French naval manufacturer Naval Group (former DCNS), inaugurated in mid-June, in Cherbourg, the first French wind turbine manufacturing plant, while the French government did not hide doubts already on the future of technology.
The construction of the plant, which represented an investment of 10 million euros, partly financed by local authorities, started in July 2017. With only two firm orders for tidal turbines (in Japan and Canada), the site of 5.500 m2 was idling with just a handful of employees.
Naval Energies was hoping for bids from the state to increase production and run its production tool. They never arrived.
The company specializing in marine renewable energies, owned 60% by Naval Group and 34% by the SPI fund of the public bank Bpifrance, announced Thursday evening in a statement that it had " decided at its extraordinary board of directors of July 25 to put an end to its investments in the field of tidal turbines ", citing a lack of prospects.
– Anger of the Elected –
Naval Energies evokes a " gap between the technological offer and the demand of the market " and denounces " the subsidy system which does not bring direct aid to builders ", not allowing the industry to" finance alone "the development of this sector.
" The French Agency for the Environment and Energy Management (ADEME) (…) has planned only 100 to 150 MW installed by 2028, ie 50 turbines of 2 MW in ten years "said the group.
This announcement has angered the elected Norman.
The Minister of the Environment " Nicolas Hulot has killed a sector of the future for marine renewable energies.This is still a shame for a minister who wants ecologist ", accused Benoît Arrivé, Mayor of Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, in an interview with La Manche Libre, denouncing " a financial and non-industrial choice ".
" The production costs of tidal turbines (…) appear very high, even in the long term and even compared to offshore wind ", said yesterday the Minister Nicolas Hulot, all by requesting additional studies from ADEME.
The senator LR of La Manche, Philippe Bas, criticized " the repeated delays, for several years and in spite of our regular raises, in the pbadage to the commercial phase of the calls for projects, essential to comfort the "business plan" of the factory and allow him to win the international markets that are multiplying ". He called the government " to the necessary start ".
Other manufacturers are present on this sector, including the British company Atlantis, world number one.
" If the State does not launch in a short time of commercial bidding, the whole (French) industry will stop ", warned during the inauguration of the Cherbourg plant, on June 14, the president of Naval Energies, Laurent Schneider-Maunoury.
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