“There is a lot of movement now”, Sven Roesner, Deputy General Manager of the German-French Office for Energy Transition says. He expects this year’s photovoltaic installations in France will boost significantly. Last year 1 Gigawatt (GW) PV has been installed, the total installed PV power is 6 GW.
The government expansion goal for PV according to the energy transition law shall be increased from 5 GW by 2020 to 10 GW by 2018 and to 18 or 20 GW by 2023. The new target for the renewable electricity mix by 2030 is 40 percent. “Within the next months the government will decide which nuclear power plants will be shut down”, Roesner says.
Arevagate: State-owned companies involved
Meanwhile a scandal upsets the French media: The state-owned Areva company has found many errors in the construction files of nuclear power plants in France and Belgium. More than 400 dossiers are suspicious including critical building parts and materials of the reactor zone. Journalists talk about Arevagate, also EDF (Energie de France) is involved. EDF is the big, centralized utility for the French energy market – also owned by the Grand Nation.
Direct selling and bidding
Solar electricity from installations above 100 kilowatt hours (kWh) is remunerated through direct selling and biddings. Installations below 100 kW are supported through a feed-in-tariff. “A fix calendar for the tender rounds is under preparation to give investors a better planning security”, Roesner says. They were actually supposed to have taken place every year, but in fact the tender rounds have been held about every 18 months.
Finance sector shows great interest in PV
“The French financing sector shows great interest for PV and is getting more and more active”, Roesner underlines. And “PV is supported by the majority of the consumers”. However due to the low electricity tariffs for end consumer of around 15 Eurocents per kWh grid parity for smaller solar installations is so far not reached in France, he adds. “In most cases feeding into the grid is still more attractive than self-consumption”, Roesner says. ”But self-consumption is also a big topic here since it is expected that electricity rates will increase.” Storage he sees as the next future step for the French PV market, but special investment incentives for storage like programs in Germany are not yet in place.
Interesting workshop in Munich
At Intersolar Europe in Munich, June 23 there will be a discussion round with Sven Roesner from the German-French Office for Energy Transition about biddings and direct selling. The French National Solar Institut (INES) offers a workshop about French innovations in the solar sector. (Hans-Christoph Neidlein)
