France makes 44 GW solar target official

From pv magazine France.

The French government has published the official decree for national energy plan the Programmation pluriannuelle de l’énergie (PPE).

The strategy targets 20.1 GW of renewables generation capacity in 2023 and 44 GW by 2028.

“To contribute to the achievement of the objectives set in this article, the indicative timetable for the launch of competitive tendering procedures for renewable electric energies until ‘in 2024’ is as follows,” states the decree. “For ground photovoltaics, two calls for tenders are planned per year up to 1 GW per period, starting in the second half of 2019, while for rooftop solar, three tenders will be launched per year for up to 300 MW per tender.”

The decree also sets other clean energy transition targets, including the development of up to 10 power-to-gas pilot projects in 2023, and 10-100 by 2028. Green hydrogen should make up 10% of the industrial hydrogen mix in 2023 and 20-40% five years later. Electromobility ambitions include 660,000 electric vehicles (EVs) in 2023 and 3 million in 2028; 500,000 and 1.8 million plug-in hybrids by the same dates and 170,000 and 500,000 electric or hybrid vehicles. Low-emission heavy vehicles should number 21,000 and 65,000, respectively.

Charging ahead

To support the EV revolution, France wants 100,000 public charging stations in 2023 plus 100 public hydrogen refuelling points, rising to 400-1,000 five years on.

Using 2012 as a baseline figure, the strategy aims for 10% less natural gas use in three years’ time, rising to 22% in 2028. A 19% and 34% reduction in oil use is pegged to the same time frame and the figures for coal are 66% and 80%. In energy efficiency terms, the aim is to reduce energy consumption against the 2012 baseline 7.5% in 2023 and 16.5% in 2028.

The PPE law was accompanied by publication of a decree which “defines the carbon budgets which constitute France’s greenhouse gas emission ceiling targets for 2019-2023, 2024-28 and 2029-33, and adopts the revised national low-carbon strategy project, which contains the guidelines for the implementation of the policy to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.”

The carbon budgets for the periods in question were set at 422, 359 and 300 megatons – millions of metric tons – respectively, of carbon dioxide emissions or equivalents, excluding emissions associated with land use and forestry.