France

Only four days after receiving approval from the European Commission, the French government has issued the tender for 200 MW of ground-mounted solar and a further 100 MW of rooftops at Fessenheim. The government is considering raising a 30 MW size limit for PV projects on degraded land.

Through the program, the French government is supporting projects ranging in size from 100 kW to 5 MW. Tenders, to award 20-year FIT contracts for projects, will be held by the end of 2019.

Although the French President promised that solar capacity will increase fivefold by 2030, France’s new energy strategy will keep nuclear power at the core of its electricity system. The decommissioning of approximately 20% of France’s nuclear power generation assets, originally set by the country’s energy transition law for 2025, has been delayed to 2035. Macron said this plan may be reconsidered, however, if storage technologies help mitigate intermittence issues and if there can be stronger European integration.

Energy cooperative Enercoop has issued a request for proposal to select renewable energy projects up to 10 MW in size for which it could award a 15 to 30-year PPA. The move is intended to attract bids for projects built without public support.

The French government has devised three possible scenarios for the planned phasing out of part of its nuclear power generation assets. Even under the most optimistic scenario, the target to reduce the share of nuclear power from around 75% to 50% by 2025, which had been set by the previous government, will only be reached in 2035. The most pessimistic scenario envisages the construction of four new nuclear reactors by 2040.

The Chair of the solar commission of French renewable energy association SER – Xavier Daval – explains why a further commitment to nuclear by the Macron government may seriously undermine efforts of late to revive renewable energy. According to him, if more nuclear reactors will be built, France may miss the chance of positioning itself as a leading country in the growing global renewable energy market.

The European Commission has given the green light to €200 million in public support that will be provided by the French governmnet for approximately 490 MW of renewable energy capacity expected to be deployed under the self-consumption regime. The scheme will be based on technology-neutral tenders.

Upon completion of the transaction, the French national development bank and the asset manager will hold a 24% joint stake in GreenYellow. Funds will be used to help the Groupe Casino subsidiary accelerate its development phase.

Eleven storage projects with a power rating of 50 MW and storage capacity of 54 MWh were selected by the French Energy Regulatory Commission through the tender. One will be in Corsica, while Guadeloupe and Guiana will each have three projects. Martinique and La Réunion will each host two.

Greenpeace France has launched a Green Electricity Guide, which ranks 19 French electricity providers in terms of their renewable energy offers. The environmental association accuses several providers of practicing greenwashing, as they buy power from nuclear power plants and then turn it “green” using guarantee of origin certificates.