Didier Mandelli: “Built or existing surfaces must be prioritized for developing renewable energy production projects”

Didier Mandelli : First, the targets and the trajectory must be set in stone, that is, in the next energy and climate programming law. Nevertheless, the law to accelerate renewable energy production (APER), which was adopted and promulgated in early 2023, sets an initial course.

The first version of this text was very clearly focused on offshore wind power, but the Senate added elements to address other renewable energy sources, starting with solar power, based on a very clear principle : built or existing surfaces must be prioritized for developing new renewable energy production projects, rather than artificializing agricultural or natural land.

This translates into stricter obligations : for new or heavily renovated non-residential buildings (warehouses, hospitals, schools, etc.), the minimum solar roof coverage will gradually rise from 30% in 2023 to 50% in 2027. This requirement will be extended to existing non-residential buildings as early as 2028.

Didier Mandelli : The APER law puts elected officials in the driver’s seat, enabling them, in coordination with intermunicipal authorities and prefects, to decide which energy sources will be installed and where… This is the purpose of the provision on planning acceleration zones, where renewable energy will be deployed as a priority.

I trust the judgment of local elected officials to develop renewable energy. The financial difficulties many of them faced in recent months, due to soaring energy prices, have led to widespread awareness of the fragility of our resources. Moreover, an elected official must not reason solely at the local level. Each area must meet its own needs, of course, but if it can make a positive contribution to energy supply on a broader scale, so much the better. There must be equalization and pooling of resources between different areas.

Didier Mandelli : Everyone has a role to play. The State sets targets and guidelines, must lead by example with its own property assets, and encourages entities that depend more or less directly on it to follow the same path, such as SNCF. Local authorities, for their part, apply these targets locally. Businesses have an essential role to play alongside individuals and the public sector. The requirement to cover 50% of a roof by 2027 is a minimum for building-sector stakeholders. If they can go further, they should. I therefore welcome the initiative of AFILOG members, who are once again anticipating requirements and taking a collective, civic-minded approach that goes beyond their sector, by deploying 5 million m2 of photovoltaic panels on warehouse roofs over five years.

I have seen this firsthand in Vendée at several sites, such as the FM Logistics group site in Saint-Hilaire-de-Loulay. At the Marches de Bretagne business park, the company is building a new 44,280 m² facility that will be fitted with solar panels across its entire roof. Its annual production is estimated at 4,000 MWh. Of this, 500 MWh will be self-consumed on site, while the remainder (3,540 MWh) will be fed back into the local grid… equivalent to the annual consumption of 1,800 residents !

Didier Mandelli : The issue was well addressed by local elected officials in the housing sector following the 2007 Grenelle Environment Forum, which set targets for land sobriety. However, it received somewhat less attention for infrastructure and was secondary in the economic sphere. Some departments had nonetheless introduced charters on the efficient management of land. This was the case in Vendée, where the consumption of 4,893 hectares of natural, agricultural and forest land (ENAF) was recorded over the 2011–2020 period, with a downward trend over the years. 

When the Senate’s Committee on Spatial Planning and Sustainable Development examined the issue of land sobriety ahead of the vote on the Climate and Resilience Bill in 2021, we found that there were many misconceptions. This was notably the case for warehouses, which were systematically associated with e-commerce, even though most of these buildings handle exchanges between economic establishments. This was likely due to the lack of information on logistics in the impact assessment used to prepare the bill. Together with our colleagues on the Economic Affairs Committee, we therefore worked to raise awareness, and the provisions concerning warehouses were adjusted to reflect the reality of the activity. In particular, the moratorium on the development of warehouses dedicated to e-commerce was dropped.

Didier Mandelli : The Act of 20 July 2023, intended to facilitate implementation of objectives to combat land artificialization and strengthen support for local elected officials, provided clarification and flexibility, in the same spirit as the law to accelerate renewable energy production. From now on, consultation must take place, and each area must be able to communicate its land-development needs from the bottom up as land sobriety is incorporated into regional spatial planning, sustainable development and territorial equality schemes (SRADDET). This is particularly crucial for areas that will contribute to the reindustrialization of our country, because upstream and downstream logistics are indispensable to this strategy.