France

The French oil giant and China’s Envision Group are forming a joint venture offering PV systems combined with energy management solutions. Total Eren is also involved in a 100 MW solar project in Uzbekistan.

At the end of June, France’s installed PV capacity topped 9.3 GW for a 4% increase on the figure recorded at the end of December. Only 397 MW of new capacity was put into operation, however, a much lower figure than the 490 MW deployed in the same period of 2018. Why?

Two procurement exercises will be for ground-mounted PV and will be launched in January and June. A third tender, scheduled for February, will concern rooftop PV.

Earlier this week, the French government published a list of winning projects for the sixth round of its tender for large-scale solar. There were a few changes from the preceding round, with French companies such as Urbasolar, Engie and Total consolidating their positions. However, even though a higher number of projects were submitted, prices increased slightly in the end. In a short conversation with pv magazine, Xavier Daval — a representative of SER, the French renewable energy association — explained the reasons for this.

The Ministry of the Economy and Finance has eliminated an ambiguity in the tax code: the French are not subject to a tax on the self-consumption of solar energy – even in the case of rented or leased photovoltaic installations. This clarification provides valuable certainty for renewable energy developers who want to innovate their business models.

The procurements relate to self-consumption projects with a generation capacity of 100 kW-1 MW. The next tender will be launched in September and will allocate 25 MW of solar capacity. The tenders had been suspended because of low interest and disproportionately high final tariffs for surplus power injected into the grid.

The Ademe has identified 17,764 sites that could help France’s ambitious solar plans to materialize. Many neglected areas that are suitable for solar are old deposits of hydrocarbons, but parking lots also offer an additional 4 GW of potential.

Voltalia has secured a 25-year power purchase agreement from French retailer Boulanger for power generated by a 5 MW project. The off-taker has also committed to buying electricity from new wind and solar plants to be operated by the French developer.

Ministers have reaffirmed plans for a Franco-German battery industry. The project is being supported in principle by the European Commission, which could give its approval by October. Meanwhile, German storage specialist Tesvolt is building a commercial storage system factory in Germany.

The feed-in tariff granted reduces each quarter in line with how much solar capacity was installed in the previous three-month period and the drop will be felt more keenly in sun-rich Corsica and the nation’s overseas territories than on the mainland.