The French energy giant and the German storage specialist will begin offering a combined solar-plus-storage solution for self-consumption on the residential French market.

The group’s solar business incurred an operating lost in the last fiscal year, due to a write-down related to a long-term purchase contract for the supply of polysilicon.

Most of the region’s future solar development will come from large-scale solar projects, as distributed generation still suffers from the high subsidies granted to residential and commercial electricity customers.

The country’s Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate has urged regional governments and municipalities to grant licenses for solar PV parks on agricultural land only as a last resource. No restrictive measures, however, are being considered.

Overall, the fast-tracked solar parks will require an aggregate investment of approximately €267 million, the regional government said.

The Canadian solar company will use the funds to expands its asset base and reach new business opportunities.

Approximately 76% of silver demand in the solar PV industry was used last year in frontside pastes, while the remaining 24% was used in backside pastes. Comoditization, however, is having detrimental effects on producers’ margins.

In a new report, the association states that urgent action is required for, among other issues, the improvement of solar generation forecasts, the exploitation of storage systems, and the reduction of minimum operation and start-up times for both existing and new thermal and hydro generators.

The alert came from the Dutch Social and Economic Council, which advised the government to invest in, among other things, training more workforce specializing in building and maintaining renewable energy power plants. On the other hand, is a fact that qualified installers are urgently needed to deploy the several GWs of of solar power allocated under the SDE+ incentive program.

The IPP project is being conceived mainly for self-consumption, although its developers have not excluded selling some of the generated power to a nearby industrial district.