France

French advisory firm Finergreen has sold its African operations to local management teams and will refocus its strategy on Europe and Asia, where it says its main growth opportunities lie.

Carbon’s gigafactory project in Fos-sur-Mer, designed to build a 5 GW integrated solar manufacturing chain in France, has been abandoned due to insufficient regulatory visibility and investor guarantees. Despite attempts to scale down and pursue partnerships, including with Chinese manufacturer Longi, the project collapsed amid uncertainty over EU industrial policy and market preference mechanisms.

A research from Switzerland has compared how France, Italy and Spain integrate biodiversity into renewable energy planning, spatial policy, and ecological impact monitoring under the European Green Deal. The findings show France and Spain have more advanced frameworks, while Italy remains more regionally fragmented, with major gaps in cumulative impact assessment across all three countries.

Fraunhofer ISE, in collaboration with Irishi energy company ESB, developed a methodology showing that Ireland is a competitive location for renewable power-to-X and green hydrogen production with costs comparable to Morocco, South Africa, and Brazil, supported by strong wind resources, policy backing, and infrastructure potential.

A roundtable recently held by solar panel manufacturer Dualsun and the GoodPlanet Foundation in Paris highlighted the organizational and regulatory barriers holding back collective solar self-consumption in France, a model its proponents say is technically ready to scale.

Hourly ENTSO-E data show the summer midday-to-evening gap in French nuclear output has grown nearly eightfold since 2019. The reactors have adapted. The rest of the European power system has some catching up to do.

Latest analysis from Pexapark finds strong solar output and weaker demand caused a drop in solar capture factors in France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain. These countries are also experiencing an increase in the share of solar production under negative price hours.

AleaSoft Energy Forecasting’s latest analysis finds the weekly average electricity price was above €100 ($117.45)/MWh in most major European markets last week, bar the Portuguese, French and Spanish markets. 

Negative electricity prices are making a strong comeback in the French energy market. Driven by rising photovoltaic output and reduced nuclear flexibility, they dominated much of April, often falling close to the regulatory floor.

The French energy regulator has released the specifications for the ninth period of the PPE2 ground-mounted solar auction, covering projects above 500 kW and setting a submission deadline of July 30, 2026.