The French Ministry for an Ecological and Solidarity Transition (CSFD) has announced the winners of the first round of a 300 MW solar tender for the Fessenheim nuclear power plant, the country’s oldest nuclear site.
The ministry said 12 projects representing 62.8 MW of generation capacity were assigned during the procurement round, with nearly 200 MW of solar schemes having been admitted to participate.
The winning projects in the first round will sell power at an average price of €66.05/MWh, the French government added. Two more 120 MW procurement rounds will be held, in January and July.
France’s Directorate General for Energy and Climate said 200 MW of capacity will be allocated for ground-mounted solar plants ranging in size from 500 kW to 30 MW and another 100 MW will be for rooftop projects not exceeding 8 MW in scale. The tender has three types of project: the ground-mount facilities; rooftop systems with a 500 kW-8 MW capacity; and 100-500 kW rooftops.
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Any projects which are at least partly financed by crowdfunding will be awarded a €3/MWh bonus, an incentive which features in all of France’s national solar tenders.
The CSFD in mid April announced plans for solar at the Fessenheim nuclear site, which is set to be decommissioned by next year. The 40-year-old nuclear plant has experienced safety issues in recent decades.
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“The 40-year-old nuclear plant has experienced safety issues in recent decades.”
No it hasn’t.
It was destroyed by the antinuclear lobby.
Thanks for the reply Mr Van Dorp.
We take accusations of fake news and misreporting very seriously here at pv magazine. One of the two reactors at Fessenheim was forced to shut down after several water leaks were found on April 9, 2014, according to a report carried by German broadcaster Deutsche Welle. The DW.com article stated newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and broadcaster WDR had obtained copies of a document sent by the head of French nuclear authority the ASN to the Fessenheim plant after the incident, and the subsequent reply. The media outlets reported the reactor could not be closed in the usual way because control rods had jammed and had to be deactivated by adding boron to a pressure vessel, in a process described as “unprecedented” in Western Europe by German government advisor on nuclear safety Manfred Mertins. The media outlets added, no mention of the jammed rods or boron process was mentioned in the official ASN report of the incident.
Our readers would be interested to hear more details of how the Fessenheim plant has already been “destroyed” by the anti-nuclear lobby, as this obviously renders future plans to power down the reactors obsolete. When did this occur and was it some sort of attack on the facility? Why have we heard no official coverage of such a serious incident and what is your source please?