The French government awarded 912MWp of solar PV in its most recent ground-mounted solar tender, which closed this week.
The capacity in the fifth instalment of the government’s PPE2 tender (Programmation Pluriannuelle de l’Energie) was spread across 92 projects, covering almost the entirety of the 925MW maximum tendered capacity. The average tariff for successful projects in the fifth round was €81.90/MWh (US$89.22), open to projects between 500kWp and 30MWp. The capacity ceiling was lifted for projects proposed on degraded lands, such as brownfield industrial sites or quarries.
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In total, 34 developers were successfully awarded capacity, 21 of which received less than 20MWp, according to French financial services company Finergreen. French utility EDF took a 21% share of the capacity, bagging 191.4MWp, followed by Neoen with a 13% share (118.9MWp) and solar developer Urbasolar with 78.3MWp representing 9% of the total capacity.
The largest projects in this round were both EDF’s: the 69MWp Centrale Photovoltaïque de Variscourt in the northern region of Hauts-de-France and the 45MWp Centrale Photovoltaïque flottante du Cheylas in the south of the country. The latter is a floating solar installation at a pumped energy transfer station.
Across all five rounds of the PPE2 scheme issued to date, EDF and Neoen are far and away the biggest beneficiaries, having secured 477MWp and 479MWp, respectively, since the scheme’s inauguration in 2022.
Comparison with previous rounds
According to analysis of the tender from Finergreen, the average price of this auction round confirms the stabilisation trend of PPE2 auctions; the first round in March 2022 closed with an average of €58.80/MWh (US$64.08), which rose to €82.20/MWh (US$89.57) by round three in April 2023 – since then, rounds three, four and five have closed within €0.50 of each other.
Round four, which closed with over 1.5GW capacity in September 2023, was the most significant state auction for solar PV in France’s history. This auction saw 129 successful projects awarded and represented a more than tenfold increase compared with the 115MW awarded in round three of PPE2.
The fourth round was unusually large because of how severely undersubscribed the third round was.
One significant change between rounds four and five is the geographical distribution of awarded capacity. The most recent tender saw bids shift southwards, with a 43% share of the capacity awarded in southern regions. Finergreen said southern France had never received more than a 33% share since the PPE2 ground-mount tenders began.
This is related to a drop in the average size of projects compared with round four, from 11.8MWp down to 9.9MWp, which may have favoured southern regions where there is greater pressure on usable land. PV Tech reported on a discussion from the Solar Finance and Investment Europe 2024 event earlier this year, which focused on the competition solar projects face for usable land in France.