EU approves France’s new scheme for self-consumption

The European Commission has approved France’s new incentive scheme for self-consumption from renewable energies.

The scheme has an indicative budget of €200 million and is financed from the French State budget. It will support the deployment of 490 MW of additional generation capacity, the EC said in its statement.

The sale of surplus power through net metering will also be allowed also under the new scheme. Eligible projects will have right to the so-called “complément de rémunération”, a feed-in premium tariff on top of the market price.

Renewable energy projects ranging in size from 100 kW to 500 kW will be entitled to participate in the scheme, which will be implemented though a series of technology-neutral tender.

“This scheme will stimulate competition between renewable energy sources for self-suppliers and will further increase the share of renewables in France's energy mix,” said Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, in charge of competition policy.

The new scheme is expected to boost self-consumption after the disappointing results of France’s most recent tenders for this segment.

In the most recent tender for solar self-consumption, 48 projects with a combined capacity of 20 MW were selected. These projects, said French Minister of the Ecological and Solidary Transition (MTES), François de Rugy, have an average self-consumption rate of around 98% and are entitled to sell excess power to the grid at a tariff €26.8/MWh. In the previous tender of the same kind, just 2.2 MW of projects were assigned.

Through self-consumption tenders, the French government is supporting rooftop PV on buildings, greenhouses, agricultural facilities and carports.