France’s first vertical bifacial solar power plant
French energy company Compagnie Nationale du Rhône is considering deploying vertical PV installations along 400 km of its dikes. A first 104 kW project was deployed at the Sablons dike, in the Isere department.
Plan for solar module gigafactory unveiled in France
An industrial area of the southern region of Occitanie has been identified for the construction of a 2 GW factory. The local development agency is currently seeking potential investors.
Hybrid wind-solar generator for rooftop applications
French startup Wind my Roof has developed a new wind power system equipped with two rooftop PV modules. It is currently testing a prototype in Paris.
Micro-inverters vs. string/central inverters
A French research group has compared the performance ratio of 100 PV systems relying on micro-inverters with that of 100 installations relying on string/central inverters. It found the performance ratio is around 79% for both system typologies and that arrays with micro-inverters are more sensitive to environmental factors.
France deployed more than 2 GW of PV in first nine months of 2021
The country’s cumulative PV capacity reached 13.3 GW at the end of September. This year’s growth was triggered by a strong increase in utility-scale solar projects.
Developers building solar park along French highway
The five-hectare project is part of the Vinci Group’s plan to develop unused areas close to the motorways operated by its unit Vinci Autoroute.
Germany will continue to dominate European home battery market – no matter who is in government
Industry association SolarPower Europe expects little change in the line-up of Europe’s biggest residential battery markets in four years’ time, with a rush of retrofits as turn-of-the-century solar feed-in tariffs begin to expire, set to keep Germany way ahead of the pack.
France’s tender for utility scale solar concludes with final average price of $0.06475/kWh
The procurement exercise’s final average price is 3% lower than that of the previous tender of the same kind. Around 636 MW of PV capacity was allocated by the French authorities.
European Commission refuses to determine lawfulness of French 2006-10 solar FITs
With Paris having retroactively reduced solar feed-in tariff rates guaranteed for 20 years in 2006 and 2010, developer Solar Electric Holding has been unsuccessful in a legal bid to force the commission to decide on the compatibility of the incentive program with EU state aid rules.
European consortium develops ways to couple heat pumps with solar panels
The Sun Horizon consortium has started to collect performance data on two pilot projects that combine heat pumps with solar systems using hybrid panels on homes in Riga, Latvia. The solution features a heat pump for space heating and domestic hot water and PVT panels to produce power for heating and domestic appliances, with excess power fed to the grid.
