IN Brief:
- The Oinville-Saint-Liphard project comprises four turbines with a combined capacity of 22MW.
- France awarded 808MW across 39 projects from 144 bids totalling 2.38GW.
- Environmental approval was completed in May, allowing entry into the relaunched tender round.
PNE Group has secured support for the 22MW Oinville-Saint-Liphard onshore wind farm in France’s latest competitive tender.
Located in the Centre-Val de Loire region, the project will use four wind turbines and was one of 39 developments selected in the eleventh tender held under France’s PPE2 energy programme.
The successful projects represent a combined 808MW, while the procurement process attracted 144 bids totalling 2.38GW. Submitted capacity was therefore almost three times the volume awarded, leaving a substantial pipeline of projects outside the round.
PNE obtained environmental approval for Oinville-Saint-Liphard in May following a 15-month consent process. Completion of that stage allowed the development to enter the tender after France restarted procurement following a pause of almost one year.
The developer previously secured support for its Chéry and Romescamps projects in the July 2025 round. Romescamps was subsequently sold, illustrating how consent, tender participation, construction, ownership, and project disposal can remain separate stages within an onshore wind portfolio.
A 22MW capacity across four machines would produce an average rating of 5.5MW where identical turbines are selected. Final equipment, hub height, rotor diameter, electrical layout, and grid-connection arrangements have not yet been disclosed.
Competition moves pressure into project execution
The volume of unsuccessful bids demonstrates the depth of the French development pipeline, although an awarded contract secures only the revenue framework. Turbine procurement, civil works, grid connection, financing, environmental conditions, and construction-price movement continue to shape the project after selection.
Environmental approval reduces one of the main development risks, but it does not remove possible legal challenges, land obligations, discharge of conditions, network delays, or changes in equipment availability. Projects with completed consents are generally better placed to proceed, provided their commercial assumptions remain viable.
Electrical works will include the turbine collection system, medium-voltage switchgear, protection, communications, earthing, metering, substation equipment, and the connection to the public network. Cable routes and substation locations must be coordinated with crane pads, access roads, drainage, ecological buffers, and planning conditions.
Network availability has become a significant constraint across European renewable development. Even where planning and revenue support are secured, reinforcement or a delayed connection date can hold a wind farm outside construction, while changes to turbine selection may require updated fault-level, reactive-power, and harmonic studies.
Using four higher-rated turbines reduces the number of foundations, transformers, cable terminations, and access points compared with older developments of similar capacity. Larger machines, however, require heavier foundations, more complex transport, greater crane capacity, and access routes capable of accommodating longer blades and tower sections.
PNE’s sale of the consented Romescamps development also reflects an active market for French wind projects at different stages of maturity. Disposals can recycle development capital, while retaining a project through construction creates exposure to procurement, financing, and long-term operating revenue.
French energy planning combines continued nuclear investment with additional renewable capacity, and onshore wind offers shorter construction periods than major offshore or nuclear projects. Local opposition, landscape policy, biodiversity, aviation constraints, radar, and grid access nevertheless continue to determine where development can proceed.
Repowering will absorb a growing share of equipment and construction capacity as earlier French wind farms approach the end of their initial operating lives. New-build projects will compete with those schemes for turbines, engineering teams, cranes, electrical contractors, and network resources, even where the repowered sites already possess established connections.
Oinville-Saint-Liphard must now progress turbine selection, financing, balance-of-plant procurement, network agreements, and the construction programme. The relatively short consent process has placed it ahead of many competing developments, although the transition from an awarded bid to an energised wind farm will depend on equipment availability and a deliverable grid connection.
