Mastodawn

The French government has announced the measures of its plan to accelerate electrification:

- a ban on gas boilers in new houses from the end of 2026
- increased support for replacing old heating with heat pumps
- 100 regions will pilot comprehensive heat transition plans to phase out gas by 2030

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https://www.info.gouv.fr/actualite/electrification-les-mesures-annoncees-par-le-gouvernement

Électrification : les mesures annoncées par le Gouvernement | info.gouv.fr

VIDÉO. Leasing social, pompes à chaleur, voitures électriques… : la France accélère son électrification pour réduire sa dépendance au gaz et au pétrole et renforcer sa souveraineté. Le soutien à l’électrification atteindra 10 milliards d’euros en 2030.

info.gouv.fr

Jaap Burger 21h ago

Doubling down on electric mobility:

- The social leasing scheme, which helps lower-income households switch to an EV, returns in June with double the capacity (2 x 50,000 cars)

- On top of this, support will be provided for an additional 50,000 EVs for 'frequent drivers' in the middle classes

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Jaap Burger 21h ago

This should not replace 'dependence on oil' with 'dependence on imported vehicles'. French car makers should produce 400,000 EVs a year (2027) and one million by 2030

- Up to €100,000 of support for electric commercial/HDVs for SMEs

- Dedicated measures for industry and agrifood, such as ovens

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Benoît Régent-Kloeckner 20h ago

@burger_jaap Quite a bit sad that we are not taking this opportunity to shift away from individual transportation with >1T vehicules.

@BrKloeckner @burger_jaap
⬆️ This, and maybe even individual transportation in general. There is a lot of room for improvement on the public transport sector here…

Francis Cook 15h ago

@samy @BrKloeckner @burger_jaap this is classic country vs city thinking. It works in the Netherlands because of population density. There are many areas in France where you’d serve 3 houses and a dog on a bus line taking hours in either direction. Bus routes are essential but you need to be able to make them work or swallow the cost when they don’t.

@dianshuo @BrKloeckner @burger_jaap
I agree. You can’t compare NL and F in that regard. But public transport should be seen as a public service and not a commercial success primarily, IMO.
Even in a very remote area in D would there at least be a bus once in a while.
Here there is just nothing. We are trying French countryside without a car and it is a real challenge, even along a „major“ TER line, which half the time is out of order with zero replacement.

Francis Cook 14h ago

@samy @BrKloeckner @burger_jaap then your transport needs to be a state entity. Or at least your country side part needs to be. You also need some level of state price control. Otherwise your 3hr countryside bus is €30 a ride which also doesn’t work. Lastly recognise the bus at distance is for communication not commuting.

Petra van Cronenburg 14h ago

@dianshuo It's important to know that local/regional transport is more a responsability of the regional Conseil Générale and local authorities, not the central government.
So you find big differences between regions, and some ideas even come from the people and are invisible. I live in a region with bad public transport on the mountains, and even one bus a day would be too expensive. But every village has a parking place for covoiturage, carpooling. We have apps

@samy @BrKloeckner @burger_jaap

Petra van Cronenburg 14h ago

@dianshuo for connecting. We have apps to ask people to bring us our shopping stuff from drive ins when they take the same direction.

Of course, we do need much more public transport but reality is like @dianshuo described it well. The other reality is that most of the remote communities are very poor, and prefer to invest in schools and other important structures.

Nevertheless, a lot has changed already!

@samy @BrKloeckner @burger_jaap

Benoît Régent-Kloeckner 14h ago

@samy @burger_jaap I did note exclude all individual transportation because of 1) bicycle 2) some areas/situations where a car is a proportionate mean of traveling, as soon as it is not a bulldozer.

MidgePhoto 12h ago

@BrKloeckner @burger_jaap
I don't think anything prevents installation of showers etc at work, secure bike parking, additional rapid transport on a grid, the extension of containerised freight to units of a side around a metre length and fractions of it, and to a fine grid of collection and delivery points etc.
Big job though.

Benoît Régent-Kloeckner 8h ago

@Photo55 @burger_jaap And our national plans do nothing in this direction, that's my point.

MidgePhoto 7h ago

@BrKloeckner @burger_jaap Yours and Sir Roger Bannister's[1]

[1] A leader in the BMJ last century. (A Neurologist, ran a mile faster than anyone else, back a while.

Troed Sångberg 19h ago

@burger_jaap I would feel bad for the french though if only french cars are included and not european in general ... ;)

/owner of both a Renault and a Volkswagen

Francis Cook 15h ago

@troed @burger_jaap I really hope the new Renault EVs are better than the electrics in their forebears.

Benjamin Braatz 14h ago

@dianshuo @troed @burger_jaap Our Renault Zoë is a nice car. They had affordable EVs quite some time before the German manufacturers.

Francis Cook 12h ago

@HeptaSean @troed @burger_jaap I like the Zoe but it’s a bit small for us. The German EVs are really not very good they all seem “swap out the old engine for new” and drive poorly with no distance (also why are they all so small inside?!)

Troed Sångberg 12h ago

Yeah we waited until VW's latest platform which is where they first started doing what I consider to be "EV from the beginning". We have the ID.7 which might be a bigger car than what you're thinking of, but we're very happy with it in all aspects.

@HeptaSean @burger_jaap

Francis Cook 12h ago

@troed @HeptaSean @burger_jaap when we were looking, the ID.4 was just out. The 7 looks nice (bit like a BYD). Next one I’d probably get an EV9 or I’d love a Li motors EV (not going to get that here).

MidgePhoto 12h ago

@dianshuo @HeptaSean @troed @burger_jaap
I like my VW ID.3 which was designed from scratch as a BEV.
I didn't love the C4e which wasn't.
The R5 though looks rather cute.

Petra van Cronenburg 14h ago

@troed They only want that their industry produces more. With these subsidies, you are completely free to choose your car. That's why I'm surrounded by Teslas (from Germany) - in the beginning they were nearly the only EVs available.
Meanwhile, you can even order a small Citroen Ami EV at the FNAC (a bookshop!)

Aurora 🐌14h ago

@burger_jaap Could be also a good idea support the moratorium of Data Centers that consume too much energy. So the energy could be used in better ways.

Petra van Cronenburg 14h ago

@CorioPsicologia France is investing largely into an own AI industry ...

MarjorieR 20h ago

@burger_jaap meanwhile, here in the UK, I can't get anywhere on our local roads here in South Devon because the gas companies are wasting our money digging the roads up to replace the gas mains with new plastic pipes.

MidgePhoto 12h ago

@marjolica @burger_jaap
There were mutterings about Hydrogen, which I might believe as a small % addition from entirely surplus electricity, but isn't a methane replacement; but I think the truth is much of our gas grid piping was too old, and would start leaking and blowing things up if left.

And the elimination of domestic gas is not yet accomplished.

MarjorieR 11h ago

@Photo55 @burger_jaap if we ever get to the stage of having a surplus of non-storeable renewable electricity that we might turn into hydrogen there are far more effective industrial uses for such hydrogen, replacing methane, than trying to pipe it to consumers. Heat pumps are a far more energy efficient way of heating homes than turning electricity into hydrogen and the burning it.

MidgePhoto 11h ago

@marjolica @burger_jaap
Tend to agree, although I have been tempted to put a bell jar in a bowl and see what I can do with the result.
Our systems evolve, so we have periods where what would not be efficiently done in a well-designed system nevertheless make some sense for a while, as an extra or a transition, or even a demo.

I do wonder if we could do something with surplus power in Scotland, that can't be got down the wires at the time. Yes, batteries, more wires, eventually.

Piranhallama 18h ago

@burger_jaap easier when over two thirds of French electricity comes from nuclear power.

@burger_jaap 100 regions? I thought France had merged regions to only 18 now?

Dan Hatton 16h ago

@burger_jaap @mjr

The wording in the original doc is "territoires", not "régions".

Chantaru 16h ago

@burger_jaap I am shocked anyone would consider installing a gas boiler in 2026. Especially considering the mild French winters and that heat pumps also supply a/c.

Pete / Syllopsium 15h ago

@chantaryu2 @burger_jaap It is different in the UK. Electricity is expensive, and the government are currently unwilling to decouple it from (effectively) gas prices.

Plenty of houses where they don't have the insulation to support a heat pump.

Also, the last time I looked the government grants didn't allow for heat pumps with a/c functionality.

MidgePhoto 11h ago

@syllopsium @chantaryu2 @burger_jaap
The ban on cooling is daft.
But a heat pump works as well as any heat source into a poorly-insulated room. (Expensively)

My recipe would involve air to air heat-pumping into one room, with insulation in that one room, leave out the water heating since that is easily accomplished, and add a bit of insulation to that room.
3 days and rising per year, run it as a cooler.

So one room as a refuge.

Petra van Cronenburg 13h ago

@chantaryu2 These new regulations are especially made for improving social housing, where nothing has been done for years and which often has the lowest energy efficiency rating. Most of these properties have ancient gas boilers. Landlords have often simply replaced them with cheap alternatives; this is now to be avoided.

Chantaru 2h ago

@NatureMC @burger_jaap but the original post says gas boilers in new housing. This is insanity.

Francis Cook 15h ago

@burger_jaap it will be interesting to see translation from gas. Heat pumps aren’t always viable and solar heating has similar issues.

Petra van Cronenburg 14h ago

@dianshuo Meanwhile we have heating pumps for every kind of house/flat, every age of buildings.

For years we have energy laws for houses with different classes, and the worst class you can't rent anymore. You are obliged to install insulation when buying/building (also with subsidies).

We also have a law that all parking places up from a certain size are obliged to be covered by solar panels and it works very well!

Francis Cook 12h ago

@NatureMC @burger_jaap is there a place online to look at those heat pumps because my experience hasn’t been great if I don’t have half an acre of land to spare.

@burger_jaap France out here doing the right thing, while Merz in germany is kissing Trumps arse, spouting racism, fighting *against* renewables and promoting oil&gas.

🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈14h ago

The French government is also moving away from Windows to Linux and other European OSS...

https://itsfoss.com/news/france-government-linux-switch/

Good News! France Starts Plan to Replace Windows With Linux on Government Desktops

DINUM is ditching Windows for Linux as France pushes every ministry to draft a migration plan away from non-European software.

It's FOSS