Five biggest weaknesses of France's PV policy

How attractive is the French PV market? Many planners hoped to find a new foothold in France, but it is becoming increasingly difficult. Insiders like Jochen Dietzmann, Windwärts’ Country Manager for France, report on the local market’s biggest problems.

Mistake #1: Poorly designed feed-in tariffs

"Unlike with wind energy, the market remains unattractive for a project developer after the reduction in feed-in tariffs for ground-mounted systems. Compensation is not enough to make projects profitable,” said Jochen Dietzmann, Windwärts’ Country Manager for France.

Mistake #2: Implementation of requests for proposals

“An alternative is to participate in national tendering procedure. Since each tender is conducted individually by the government, the development and implementation of ground-mounted solar arrays is poorly planned within this framework. A tender’s focus and technical content are difficult to predict in the medium and long term; participation is time-consuming and costly; and approved installed capacity for ground-mounted solar arrays is quite low, up to 200 megawatts per tender.”

Mistake #3: Reliability

Since legal framework conditions are very volatile, it is very difficult to develop greenfield projects with correspondingly long project development times of several years.

Mistake #4: Goals

The 5.4 gigawatts PV in France will be reached earlier than the current legislation’s 2020 target goal. More than 4 GW has already been installed. Task Force 3 on the “Renewable Energy Strategy and Industrial Development” suggests the government raise the goal to between 15 and 25 GW by 2020.

Mistake #5: Planning security

The keywords are stability and planning security. Similar to Spain or Italy, PV in France has suffered strongly from the recurring and very one-sided debate about cost and what policy is right. In the last three years, the government has made announcements and then dragged its feet, sometimes announcing tenders and then withdrawing them later. This instability is not in the spirit of investment security, and feedback from industry shows that the result has been uncertainty among banks and the public in regards to solar energy.

The hope

But there is hope: “Today’s government is working hard to provide the industry with more stability, and Environmental Minister Delphine Batho has a sympathetic ear for the industry and has already made decisions in its interest," said Céline Kittel, PV expert at the Franco-German Renewable Energy Office. But the government cannot do everything alone; red tape needs to be reduced, and costly processes for grid connections done away with to build confidence among banks, but it is also important that regional and local authorities be pro-active and indicate they are giving solar energy a chance in their region. (Nicole Weinhold / Craig Morris)