France mandates five and ten year grid development plans for distributors

France has imposed on electricity distribution network operators a binding obligation to draw up and publish a network development plan covering five and ten year horizons, with quantified annual investment trajectories. The measure is set out in Décret n° 2026-805 of 20 August 2026, published in the Journal officiel de la République française n°0194 of 21 August 2026, and signed by the Ministère de l’économie, des finances et de la souveraineté industrielle, énergétique et numérique.

The decree inserts a new Section 6, “Plan de développement de réseau”, into Chapter II of Title II of Book III of the regulatory part of the code de l’énergie, creating articles D. 322-21 to D. 322-24. It applies to the distribution system operators referred to in article L. 322-11, notably Enedis and the local distribution companies (ELD), each within its exclusive service area.

A forward-looking planning tool

The plan must describe the expected evolutions of the electricity system through scenarios and annual trajectories over five and ten years, and assess their consequences for the public distribution network. It quantifies the foreseeable annual investment trajectories up to those horizons and sets out the operator’s investment strategy and decision-making criteria.

The plan must be drawn up in coherence with the regional renewable-energy connection schemes, the objectives of the multi-annual energy programming, and, outside non-interconnected zones, the ten-year development scheme of the transmission network.

Content of the plan

For the main operator, the plan must include at least a technical inventory of the network, a quantitative assessment of possible evolutions, the investment policy, the annual investment trajectories, and an analysis of industrial and supply-chain issues. The inventory covers, by voltage level:

• the number and consumption of delivery points and the number and production of injection points;
• the number of self-consumption installations;
• the length of the network, distinguishing overhead bare-wire and underground paper-insulated sections;
• the number of substations, including source, distribution and repartition substations.

The investment trajectories distinguish connections of consumer and producer users, performance and modernisation investments, environmental and external-constraint investments, logistics and other investments, including those under the project management of the conceding authorities.

Governance and oversight

After the consultations provided for in article L. 322-11, the operator submits the plan to the comité du système de distribution publique d’électricité and to the Commission de régulation de l’énergie (CRE), and transmits it to the energy minister, who may make observations within two months. The committee gives its opinion within two months, and the CRE may request modifications within four months; a modified plan is then republished within three months, or four months when a new consultation is required.

The decree, which enters into force with its publication, gives the energy regulator a decisive role in steering the modernisation of the French distribution grid. For consumers and producers, the new plans will make the pace of renewable connections, electric-vehicle charging infrastructure and tariff-driving investment more visible over the coming decade.

Source: Journal officiel de la République française, n°0194, 21 August 2026, Section I (official reference: Décret n° 2026-805, NOR ECOR2618994D).