The New Energy Policy Of France And Corresponding Impacts (1990-2015)

France is a country with an extremely limited amount of tradition energy resources such as oil, coal, and gas. In order to reduce its energy dependency on imports, France has started developing vigorously its electricity generation capacity from nuclear power and corresponding technologies since the 1970s. So far, the electricity generation from nuclear power has taken up to 75% of the country's total electricity generation, which makes France the biggest nuclear power generator globally. Since 1997 where the Kyoto Protocol came into action, France was required to maintain its emission level stable. As its power generation capacity mainly comes from non-fossil fuels, its potential in reducing emissions in power sector is relatively limited. Therefore, France has been pushing forward the low-carbon development in transportation sector, green buildings, etc. since 1990s.Nevertheless, since the nuclear crisis in Fukushima, the central governments and policy-makers from France, Germany, and the UK have begun to redesign their energy portfolios in the upcoming years. Meanwhile, the rising public concern over ecological and environmental impacts of nuclear power plants and hydropower stations has been encouraging the French government and decision-makers to reconsider and redesign the country's future energy portfolios. After that the European Commission launched the "Renewable Energy Road Map" in 2007, the French parliament has officially adopted and put into action the "Energy Transition Law for Green Development" (Projet de loi relative a la transition energetique pour la croissance verte) in 2015. The Law regulated that France is supposed to reduce its nuclear power generation by 20% in ten years while pushing forward vigorously the development of solar power and wind power.This thesis presents the key policies made by the French government between 1990 and 2015 for the renewable energy sectors or the development of renewable energies. It also discusses the impacts of the policies from the perspectives of domestic impacts and European Union-level impacts. For the domestic impacts, the thesis focuses on the energy transition in the power sector; for the EU-level impacts, the thesis tends to compare the policy-making at the EU-level and that at national level so as to find out the interconnections between the two. Overall, this thesis is expected to discover the successes and issues occurred in France's policy-making for its energy transition.In order to analyze the new energy policies of France including specific goals and objectives, this thesis has mainly examined the policy-making process, a set of policies and regulations, and specific targets approved by the French government. In terms of domestic impacts, the thesis focuses on the impacts on domestic power sector. At the European Union level, the impacts could be reflected in the comparison between the policy pathways of the EU and France.Future pathway for the French new energy policies will be affected by various factors, amongst which economic development is a key factor that may limit the expansion of renewable energy sectors. Moreover, other societal problems such as immigration crisis, and unemployment rate might also determine whether the energy transition goals for 2030 and 2050 could be reached. The thesis analyses the policy impacts for the French domestic energy sector and the impacts for the policy-making at the European Union level. Nevertheless, future researches and studies could be built upon more comprehensive studies on the dynamics and interaction between two or several factors, which could provide suggestions for policy-making process.