German independent power producer (IPP) wpd has started construction at its 140.6MW Marcy solar park in the Nièvre department of central France.
Construction work is being managed by the company’s regional solar power arm, wpd solar France, and partner organisation Cryo. The companies expect construction work to take 15 months, and commercial operations to begin in autumn 2026.
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“This project perfectly illustrates how energy generation and agricultural production can complement each other,” said Damien Brunon, co-managing director of Cryo, referring to the project’s agrivoltaics (agriPV) component; sheep farming will be carried out under the solar panels, while cattle farming will take place on the surrounding land. Cryo and wpd collectively acquired 632 hectares of land for the project, with the solar modules set to cover just 187 hectares of this.
“We are very proud to be developing one of the largest solar projects in France, which also enhances the agricultural use of the land,” added Matthias Boll, president of wpd solar France. “Marcy is a symbolic project that shows it is possible to combine renewable energy generation, the revitalisation of agricultural activities and the protection of biodiversity.”
The combination of solar and agricultural activities has long been thought of as a solution to a significant land availability issue facing the French renewable energy sector. At last year’s Solar Finance and Investment Europe conference in London, Marion Jesberger, head of finance and deputy general manager, France, at ib vogt, described the presence of a “huge land scarcity” issue.
Challenges such as these may have contributed to the government’s revising down of its 2035 solar deployment targets, from 75-100GW to 65-90GW. For its part, wpd has sought to overcome the issue of grid connection that impedes many solar deployments across Europe, having completed its own on-site substation for the Marcy project, and French grid operator RTE began construction on a grid connection for the project last year.
