Branches fly and leaves swirl. Barely enough time to land on the damp ground before they rise again, in a repetitive waltz orchestrated by Caetano, the storm which crossed France this Thursday, November 21. The Nantes countryside was not spared by the early winter episode. Wind gusts exceeded 120 km/h. Although it wreaked havoc in many areas, the storm made a few happy. Those who rely on wind activity, which today’s weather has placed in optimal conditions. And above all the first customers of the “Fan club” of Octopus Energy, the electricity supplier behind this unique offer in the region: delivering electrons at reduced prices to homes located near the Touches II wind farm, in Loire-Atlantique.
A good deal in bad weather. André Lambert, resident of Teillé, one of the ten municipalities where the service is accessible, will not say the opposite. On the customer account dashboard, the needle shows -50%. At this precise moment in the early afternoon, the price per kilowatt hour (KWh) is billed half as much, since the wind turbine far exceeds the 3,000 kW threshold set to benefit from this reduction. Another preferential rate exists, when the weather is milder: -20% on the bill if the wind turbine produces more than 100 kW.
Monitoring the production of the park, located around ten kilometers away, in 30-minute increments, allows retirees to optimize their consumption to take advantage of the slots where the savings are the most interesting. “Last night, for example, I saw that the night was going to be calm, but that the wind was going to blow the next day. So I waited before putting my electric car to charge,” he explains. Thanks to Caetano, his two vehicles have their range at maximum, and his home battery is also at 100%. “I didn’t know about Octopus Energy three months ago. I stuck with the project and I only see a win in it,” assures André Lambert. So much so that he now extols the merits of this new offer to his neighbors, to the town’s baker or to his councilor, and encourages them to take the plunge.
Towards better acceptability
Could this “Fan club” be the missing link in wind projects? The one that allows concrete benefits to local residents, which until now have fallen more on communities and land owners? The law relating to the acceleration of the production ofrenewable energiesknown as APER, is trying to increase “value sharing” locally, but it still struggles to make it visible to individuals. “They do not feel the effects financially,” adds Jean-Pierre Belleil, mayor of Joué-sur-Erdre, a municipality eligible for the new offer. “We want to break this idea of ’I see the wind turbines in my landscape but there is nothing for me’. The objective is to create a direct and visible benefit on the invoice”, says Lancelot d’Hauthuille, the director general manager of Octopus Energy France. According to its forecasts, customers would see an annual reduction of around 20% in their electricity bill. “It’s a real link to reality,” agrees Nikita Ghelelovitch, responsible for development in the West of SAB Energies Renouvelables, the operator of the wind farm in question.
The latter sees it above all as a step to facilitate the acceptability of the parks. At La Touche, the hardest part was already done: the three masts (3 MW each) were certainly put into service recently, at the end of 2023, but they were in addition to six existing wind turbines, already well integrated into the local Panama. In the future, the price argument could weigh when it is necessary to convince residents who are most resistant to projects that start from scratch. During a presentation for one of them in Côtes-d’Armor, Nikita Ghelelovitch mentioned the experiment to an opponent. “At the end, she told me she would reconsider her position if we implemented it,” he says.
“Why didn’t they do this before?”
The concept has already won over across the Rhine, in two sectors, but especially across the Channel, where Octopus Energy is the market leader. The “Fan club” offer is offered for three onshore wind farms and one at sea. The reduction, in the latter case, applies to residents of the coast “in visual proximity to the field”, explains Lancelot d’Hauthuille. In total, nearly 36,000 British customers have subscribed. In France, it is more of the order of a few hundred for the moment, out of a potential of 10,000 to 12,000 households in the area concerned. Nothing to worry about for an offer launched in mid-October. “We are only at the beginning of the story,” promises the former co-founder of Plüm Énergie.
Other similar projects could emerge within three to six months. Octopus Energy would also like to copy in France the Winder application launched in the United Kingdom, a sort of “Tinder” of wind power, on which citizens themselves request to have such projects near their homes. It is then up to the supplier to make their wish come true. “It changes things when the will comes from local residents, rather than having 6 or 7 years of endless appeals,” admits Lancelot d’Hauthuille.
The company, which arrived in France in 2022, has five wind farms in the region. Insufficient to provide electricity to its 350,000 customers. It therefore relies on a network of several independent producers of renewable energies, who might want to follow the path traced by SAB and duplicate the “Fan club”. It is certain that the big fish in the sector, like EDF or Engie, are also keeping an eye on the Loire experience. “I would be delighted to be copied,” says the head of Octopus. “Because I am convinced that the initiative is really effective.” André Lambert too. The wind still moans outside his house, heated and lit at half the price thanks to the gusts. He asks: “Why didn’t the others do it before?”
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