France's biggest-ever wind farm project blocked by court

Planning permission for France’s most powerful new wind turbine installation has been overturned by appeal court judges, who argue the project would leave local residents feeling completely surrounded.

“Nothing can be done with the landscape, by planting or other measures, to mask the impact of the wind turbines and reduce the impression on encirclement and visual saturation for residents,” judges at the Cour administrative d’appel de Nancy wrote in their comments.

EDF, one of the project’s main backers, is considering an appeal. However, legal commentators believe it is unlikely to succeed.

The new installation, called Mont de Quatre Faux in Ardennes, would have comprised 69 turbines 200m-tall turbines.

It has been planned since 2007 for a high plateau 40km north of Reims.

Covering four communes, the plan provoked immediate opposition from residents who argued they already had numerous wind turbines visible in an area around 10km from the proposed installation.

Read more: What impact do wind turbines have on French property prices and are new ones planned?

Promoters said the project would provide enough clean energy for 249,000 houses and several dozen full-time jobs.

Despite the opposition, EDF gave its backing in 2014, buying half the shares in a company called Windvision (now called Renner), formed to develop the wind generation project. It was forecast to produce 226MW of electricity a year.

The prefect of Ardennes gave planning permission in 2017, which was immediately opposed in the courts by residents.

Residents lost a lower court case in 2020, and in 2022 the appeal court in Nancy initially rejected their attempt to have planning permission revoked, allowing the developers and prefect to correct some legal mistakes in their original application.

Negative visual impact 

In March, appeal court judges again heard the residents’ case, and said although the mistakes had been fixed, the visual impact of the wind turbines was too great and could not be ignored.

They added that only a “significant evolution of the project would improve the situation”.

EDF Renouvables issued a statement saying that it was considering an appeal. However, it has subsequently remained silent about the judgement and gave no reply when The Connexion asked to discuss the implications of the ruling.

In previous wind turbine cases, the Conseil d’Etat, France’s highest administrative court, has often overturned appeal court judgements based on environmental damage caused to flora and fauna, but not judgements based on the visual impact of the turbines.

Read more: French wind farm paused after 300 protected birds killed by blades

The largest existing wind turbine installation in France started producing 140MW of electricity a year at Fruges in Pas-de-Calais in 2008. It has 70 turbines, in 16 clusters. A project to replace the existing turbines with taller, more powerful, ones has been announced.

There are currently around 10,000 wind turbines in France, most of them on land, spread across 2,400 wind farms. More than half of these are in Hauts-de-France and Grand Est, while the remainder are in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Centre-Val de Loire, and Occitanie. 

There are three offshore wind farms, with 200 turbines, off the coast of Saint-Nazaire, Saint-Brieuc, and Fécamp.

Wind farms are the third-biggest source of energy in France (after nuclear and water, but ahead of solar panels and gas).