Unite, a Lyon-based company, has started building a solar aviary on a pheasant farm in Brinon-sur-Sauldre, France. pv magazine France recently spoke with Stéphane Maureau, Unite’s associate managing director, about the company’s PV growth strategy.

Dracula Technologies has built an organic photovoltaic (OPV) module factory in France to make OPV devices with digital printing technology for connected objects. The facility can produce up to 150 million cm² of OPV modules per year, with the first shipments scheduled to start in 2024.

Salins group, the leading salt producer in France, has joined forces with Compagnie Nationale du Rhône and its subsidiary, Vensolair, to build 100 MW of solar on unused salt marshes in southern France. The two companies say they might also build experimental projects on operational salt production sites.

Heliup has raised €10 million ($10.5 million) to finance the construction of a PV panel manufacturing facility at an unspecified location in France.

BayWa re says it needs to find a buyer for its PV distribution unit, Solar Trade, by the end of this year.

TotalEnergies has become the sole shareholder of French agrivoltaics specialist Ombrea, in a transaction that builds upon the partnership they started in 2019.

The French government has awarded 129 projects an average price of €0.0824 ($0.0868)/kWh in its latest ground-mounted tender. This represents the largest capacity since the beginning of the tender series held by the French authorities.

Scatec has turned on two solar-plus-storage facilities in northern Cameroon, with 30 MW of solar and 20 MW/19 MWh of energy storage.

TSE has installed a 2.9 MW agrivoltaics plant in northern France with sensors to trigger an irrigation system. The irrigation setup can reportedly achieve significant water savings. The company is selling the electricity under a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA).

Q Energy says it will deploy a 74.3 MW floating PV array in northwestern France. The project should take around 18 months to complete, with commissioning scheduled for 2025.