Section 3: Shareholdings in companies

All shareholdings in the capital of a commercial company or any other profit-making body whose purpose is not to operate departmental services or activities of general interest under conditions similar to those provided for, in the case of communes, by article L. 2253-2. By way of derogation from this article, a département may, by deliberation of its deliberative body, hold shares in a société anonyme or a société par actions simplifiée whose corporate purpose is the production of renewable energy or renewable or low-carbon hydrogen as defined in article L. 811-1 of the Energy Code, through facilities located in its territory or in neighbouring territories. These shares may be acquired by acquiring holdings in the capital of commercial companies whose sole purpose is to hold the shares of the companies mentioned in the second sentence of this article. The département may grant loans to companies producing renewable energy or renewable or low-carbon hydrogen as defined in article L. 811-1 of the Energy Code, in which it directly participates, current account advances at market prices and under the conditions provided for in Article L. 1522-5. By way of derogation from the conditions laid down in the same Article L. 1522-5, the duration of current account advances may be extended by the department to seven years, renewable once, when the energy produced by the production facilities benefits from the support provided for in Articles L. 311-12, L. 314-1, L. 314-18, L. 446-2, L. 446-5, L. 446-14 or L. 446-15 of the Energy Code. In the latter case, by way of derogation from the conditions laid down in article L. 1522-5 of the present code, the advance may be granted if the total amount of the advances granted by the département to all the companies in which it is a shareholder does not exceed, with this new advance, 15% of the actual revenue of the operating section of the département's budget. Subsequent advances granted by the department to all the companies of which it is a shareholder may not have the effect of raising their total amount above the 15% threshold.