The country that long banked on nuclear power now wants to sprint on renewables, scaling solar, wind and grids fast enough to rival its most advanced European neighbours.
France’s renewable leap: from solid player to would-be frontrunner
New projections suggest France aims for a deep transformation of its power system by 2035. According to consultancy GlobalData, the country’s installed renewable generation capacity could surge from about 59 gigawatts (GW) in 2024 to 163.1 GW in 2035.
That would mean almost tripling renewable capacity in just over a decade, with average annual growth close to 10%.
If that trajectory holds, renewables would account for roughly 72% of France’s installed electricity capacity by 2035. Actual electricity production would still lean heavily on nuclear, but the physical landscape of the system — the turbines, panels and dams — would look radically different.
Solar becomes the workhorse of the French transition
The biggest change comes from solar. France plans to move from 30.5 GW of solar photovoltaic capacity in 2024 to 111.2 GW in 2035. That is a jump of about 264%, and it would make solar the main growth driver of the entire power system.
Several levers lie behind this solar rush:
- Rooftop self-consumption for homes, businesses and public buildings
- Car-park canopies that shade vehicles while generating power
- Agrivoltaics, where farmers combine crops or grazing with elevated panels
- Large ground-mounted plants on less sensitive land, including old industrial sites
Supportive public policies underpin the boom. Recent French laws require many large car parks to be covered with solar panels over the coming years. Regions and cities are funding rooftop programmes. Procurement rules for public buildings now often factor in on-site generation.
If current plans materialise, the sun would overtake historic hydropower as the largest source of renewable capacity in France by 2035.
That shift also has a social angle: solar installations are increasingly visible in daily life, from supermarket roofs to farm fields, helping normalise the energy transition for a sometimes sceptical public.
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Wind power: onshore friction, offshore ambition
Onshore wind pushes ahead despite resistance
Onshore wind remains politically delicate in France. Local opposition, visual impact concerns and legal challenges often slow or block projects. Yet forecasts still show capacity growing from 22.9 GW in 2024 to around 36 GW in 2035.
The main driver here is not just new sites, but repowering: replacing older, smaller turbines with fewer but far more powerful machines on existing wind farms.
Repowering lets developers squeeze more electricity out of already approved sites, while limiting fresh land use disputes.
Regions such as Hauts-de-France, Grand Est and Occitanie host many of the current turbines and will likely see the bulk of this modernisation. Better regional planning and coordination between local authorities and grid operator RTE should help projects move faster than in the past.
Offshore wind steps out of the shadows
The real wildcard lies at sea. France’s offshore wind capacity, still modest at about 1.5 GW, could soar to 10.7 GW by 2035 thanks to large-scale wind farms planned off Brittany and Normandy.
These projects benefit from long-term “contracts for difference” (CfDs), a scheme that guarantees a fixed price for electricity produced. That gives investors revenue stability despite volatile wholesale power prices.
Paris has also adopted a national offshore acceleration strategy. It sets clearer timelines for auctions, grid connections and environmental procedures. Ports along the Atlantic and Channel coasts now house assembly yards, warehouses and maintenance bases for turbines and foundations.
Offshore wind could become one of France’s flagship industrial sectors, pairing electricity generation with shipbuilding, ports and heavy engineering jobs.
Nuclear remains the backbone, but no longer grows
France’s nuclear fleet stays central to the picture, yet it no longer expands significantly. GlobalData expects capacity to inch from 61.4 GW to about 63 GW by 2035. So, in practice, nuclear holds its ground rather than grows.
Two main tools support that stability:
- The “Grand Carénage” life-extension programme, launched in 2014, which refurbishes existing reactors so they can run safely beyond 40 years.
- Plans for six new EPR2 reactors, though their exact timelines remain uncertain and likely stretch beyond 2035 for most units.
Because nuclear plants run many more hours per year than wind or solar, they will still deliver a large share of actual electricity in 2035. But their share in total capacity shrinks as renewables multiply.
Rather than replacing nuclear, renewables grow around it, building a more flexible system that can cope with weather swings and demand peaks.
Policy gains ground, bottlenecks bite
Clearer national strategy, stronger incentives
France has recently tightened up its planning framework with an updated National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP 2024) and a revised multi-year energy programme. These documents give investors a clearer sense of direction: how much of each technology the state wants, and by when.
Feed-in tariffs are gradually giving way to competitive auctions and CfDs, which tend to lower costs for consumers while still providing stable revenue to developers. On top of that, a roughly €7 billion hydrogen plan aims to back green hydrogen projects that rely on surplus renewable electricity.
Grid operator RTE is mid-way through a massive investment drive, upgrading high-voltage lines, adding new interconnectors and reinforcing substations to handle more variable wind and solar output.
Local hurdles and grid congestion
Despite stronger national direction, several structural issues persist. Permitting remains slow, especially for onshore wind. Projects may spend years in environmental assessments, public consultations and court appeals before a single turbine goes up.
In regions like Occitanie or Nouvelle-Aquitaine, where wind and solar already expanded quickly, the electricity network struggles to keep up. Substations and lines in some areas are saturated, forcing grid operators to curtail production.
Growing curtailment — switching off turbines or panels because the grid cannot absorb the power — shows that steel in the ground is running ahead of copper in the air.
This mismatch between generation and network capacity has direct financial consequences for developers and can fuel local frustration when projects stand idle on windy or sunny days.
How France compares with its European rivals
Even with this planned acceleration, France is not automatically the champion of renewables in Europe. Germany plans around 215 GW of renewable capacity by 2035, driven by solar rooftops and a huge onshore wind fleet. Spain, already a solar heavyweight, targets close to 160 GW by 2030 alone, helped by abundant sun and high installation rates.
Italy wants about 130 GW of renewables by 2035, using shorter permitting times in some regions and strong involvement of private developers. Smaller countries such as the Netherlands and Denmark punch above their weight offshore, thanks to focused maritime strategies and higher public acceptance of wind farms at sea.
| Country | Renewable capacity 2024 (GW) | Planned renewable capacity 2035 (GW) | Main strengths |
|---|---|---|---|
| France | 59.1 | 163.1 | Diverse mix: solar, wind, hydro |
| Germany | 147 | 215 | Large rooftop solar, strong onshore wind |
| Spain | 73 | 160 | High solar resource, growing storage |
| Italy | 63 | 130 | Solar in the south, bioenergy |
| Netherlands | 37 | 70 | Offshore wind clusters |
| Denmark | 12 | 35 | Long-standing wind expertise |
France’s goal is not just to catch up, but to join the leading pack by betting on both massive solar and competitive offshore wind.
What this means for consumers and the grid
For households and businesses, the triple expansion of renewables could translate into more volatile wholesale prices, but also more ways to cut bills. Rooftop solar and collective self-consumption schemes already let neighbours or businesses share local generation. As capacity grows, such models could spread into apartment blocks and business parks.
The grid will need to act smarter. Digital tools, demand response and batteries will help smooth out peaks and valleys in production. In practical terms, that might mean industrial users agreeing to shift some processes away from evening peaks, or supermarket chains aggregating fridge flexibility to provide balancing services to the grid.
Hydrogen electrolysers, located near ports or industrial hubs, could run when wind and solar output is high, absorbing excess power instead of letting it go to waste. That power-to-hydrogen link turns potential curtailment into a feedstock for refineries, fertiliser plants or future low-carbon shipping fuels.
Key terms and scenarios worth watching
A few technical ideas sit at the core of this shift. Curtailment means forcing a wind or solar plant to reduce output because the grid cannot take all the electricity. It is not a failure of the plant itself, but a sign that either network capacity or demand response is too weak at that moment.
Contracts for difference (CfDs) set a “strike price” for electricity. If the market price falls below that level, the state tops up the difference to the producer. If the market price goes above, the producer pays back the extra. This mechanism stabilises revenues and can lower financing costs, which in turn reduces consumer prices.
Looking ahead, three broad scenarios stand out for France. In a high-renewables, grid-ready path, network upgrades and storage keep pace, curtailment stays limited, and France positions itself as an exporter of clean power and potentially green hydrogen. In a bottleneck scenario, permitting delays and grid congestion slow the ramp-up, forcing more reliance on gas imports during tight periods. A middle-road outcome, where growth continues but with periodic tension, currently looks the most plausible.
For now, the numbers show one thing clearly: France is preparing to move from a nuclear-dominated, relatively static system to a more diverse, faster-changing mix. If the country manages to triple its renewable capacity on schedule, it will not just change its place in Europe’s energy league tables. It will also change the everyday relationship between French citizens, their countryside and the power that keeps the lights on.
