The European Commission has approved a €11 billion French state aid scheme to support the development of floating offshore wind energy, authorising funding for three wind farms with a combined capacity of 1.5 gigawatts (GW).
The 20-year support package, cleared under the Clean Industrial Deal State Aid Framework (CISAF), is designed to help France and the European Union meet renewable energy targets for 2030, while also reducing dependency on imported clean energy components.
Each of the three floating wind farms — one located off the coast of southern Brittany and two in the Mediterranean — is expected to have a capacity of approximately 500 megawatts (MW) and generate about 2.2 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity annually. According to the Commission, this output would be sufficient to power around 450,000 households in France.
Financial support will be allocated through a competitive bidding process, with one developer selected per offshore zone. The winning projects will benefit from two-way contracts for difference (CfDs), a mechanism that balances payments based on the difference between the market price and the bidder’s offered reference price.
“When the market price is lower than the reference price, the State pays the difference,” the Commission explained. “When the market price is higher, the beneficiary pays the difference back to the State.”
The scheme includes several safeguards to limit overcompensation, including the suspension of payments during periods of negative electricity prices. The Commission stated that the initiative complies with CISAF requirements, including provisions under Sections 3 and 4.1.2, and meets EU state aid rules under Article 107(3)(c) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
France has also introduced supply chain diversification requirements as part of the scheme, using them as prequalification and award criteria in a bid to reduce reliance on critical components sourced from China.
The European Commission concluded that the measure was “necessary, appropriate and proportionate” to promote clean energy deployment and strengthen domestic manufacturing capacity in the renewables sector.
A non-confidential version of the decision will be published under case number SA.115764 on the Commission’s competition website.
