CRE

France's energy regulatory authority CRE has actually released a series of tenders for solar photovoltaic (PV), onshore wind and hydropower capability as part of a new procurement scheme laid out in its multi-year power strategy.

A tender targeting to contract 700 MWp of large-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) projects has been introduced in France, with the opportunity to upsize the supplied quantity to 1,000 MW.

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?

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.