French utility EDF Renewables has opened its first floating solar (FPV) plant in a hydro reservoir facility in the French Alps.
With a total installed capacity for the solar array of 20MWp, this marks the first project for EDF that combines both solar PV and hydroelectric power generation at the same site, which is located at the Lazer dam hydropower plant, in the southeast of France.
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The project – the first for the company in France – comprises 50,000 solar panels and will double the renewable electricity generation at the site.
Both the anchoring and floating system will adapt to the reservoir’s water levels without any impact on its operation.
Launched in 2017, the project was awarded in a call for proposals from the French Energy Regulatory Commission in 2018 before construction began in 2021.
Bruno Bensasson, senior executive VP of Renewable Energies at EDF Group, said: “To achieve this first for France, EDF Renewables drew on the expertise it has developed at international level, with four floating solar power plants already constructed in Israel and the USA.”
Speaking to PV Tech last week at Intersolar Europe, in Munich, Jasper Lemmens, senior consultant of solar energy at DNV and Magnus Johannesen, engineer, environmental loading and response energy systems at quality assurance company DNV highlighted France as one of the emerging European markets moving ahead in terms of FPV regulation that is expected to boost its uptake in the coming years.
Outside of Europe, EDF secured in 2021 a solar-hydro co-located project which will see the development of a 240MWp FPV project in Laos.