France Will ‘Largely’ Exceed 2020 Solar Target, Official Says
France’s solar power capacity will be “largely” higher than the 5,400 megawatts targeted by the government for 2020 even though subsidies will be cut, an Environment Ministry official said.
“The lowest scenarios studied in the current talks with the photovoltaic industry will prompt us to go very largely beyond what is planned,” Pierre-Franck Chevet, head of energy and climate at the Environment Ministry, said at a conference in Paris today. “We’ll go beyond targets.”
France in December suspended the registration of solar- energy projects for three months to study cuts in feed-in tariffs and measures to limit growth in the industry following a boom in installations that will inflate the cost of electricity paid by consumers. The halt applied to projects with a capacity of more than 3 kilowatts.
The cost of producing a solar power ranges from 300 euros to 600 hundred euros per megawatt-hour, compared with European power market prices ranging from 50 euros to 70 euros, Chevet said.
Before the suspension, France’s solar power capacity was expected to rise to about 2,150 megawatts at the end of 2011 from 200 megawatts at the end of 2009, according to the energy regulator.
The moratorium prompted First Solar Inc. and EDF Energies Nouvelles SA, the renewable arm of Electricite de France SA, to suspend a plan to build a 120-megawatt solar panel factory in Blanquefort, France. Smaller makers and installers of solar panels, supplied mostly from China, also said the decision may lead to job losses.
Spur on Industry
The government, seeking to encourage manufacturers to invest in the nation, will look more favorably on proposals to build offshore wind farms that come from companies also expanding factories in France, Chevet said today.
Results from that contest are due in the first half of next year. The government also will look at the “carbon footprint” of the projects, including transport-related emissions of turbines, as part of the evaluation of the bids.
The cost of producing power from offshore wind farms ranges from 150 euros to 180 euros per megawatt-hour, he said. That compared with about 120 euros to 140 euros for biomass plants, and 80 euros for onshore wind, he added.
The French government said in January it will call for bids by the end of the year to build five offshore wind farms totalling and 3,000 megawatts. They represent an investment of 10 billion euros and are slated to be connected to the French grid starting in 2015.
The second round of tenders for another 3,000 megawatts of offshore wind farms needs to begin within 30 months after the end of the first tender if France wants to meet its goal of 6,000 megawatts of offshore wind capacity in 2020, Chevet said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Francois De Beaupuy in Paris at fdebeaupuy@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Benedikt Kammel at bkammel@bloomberg.net
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