Hogan Lovell OffshoreBook 2023 230809 OnlinePDF - Flipbook - Page 103
Offshore Wind Worldwide 2023
Since then, the situation has considerably
evolved, in a positive sense, and the current
regulatory framework for the OWF has
improved a lot, through several legislative
and regulatory reforms which have brought
substantial legal clarifications and simplifications.
The number of authorisations needed
has significantly decreased, a significant
portion of the preliminary studies are now
undertaken by the State ahead and before
the launch of the tender procedures, and
all litigation concerning the OWF has been
centralised and unified within the Council
of State which rules at both first and last
instance, which allows to divide the timeframe for settling legal challenges by a
factor of three or four. Besides, the French
government has planned to launch a series
of important public tenders in the coming
months and years to achieve its ever higher
green energy ambitions – which it has very
recently considerably heightened by strong
announcements, which will allow for a steady growth in terms of quantity of electricity
produced by OWF.
The full operation of the 480 MW/h OWF in
Saint-Nazaire since November 2022 demonstrates that the completion of offshore
projects in France is possible and paves the
way for the commissioning of other farms.
103
