Solar power in France tops 6 GW at end-June 2015

Photovoltaic (PV) power plants in France crossed the 6 GW threshold at the end of June 2015, statistic data of the energy ministry shows.

New projects with a total capacity of 382 MW joined the grid from January to June, lifting the overall PV installed capacity in the country to 6,046 MW. Over 60% of the newly added capacity came from projects larger than 250 kWp in capacity.

Solar power output over the first six months of the year reached 3.2 TWh, marking a 17% year-on-year rise. Photovoltaics thus supplied 1.3% of the electricity demand in France over the period, a tick higher from 1.2 % achieved in the year-ago period.

France had a pipeline of 21,759 PV power projects with a combined capacity of 2,015 MW at the end of June. Of these, 12,780 projects with a total capacity of 797 MW have already signed grid-connection contracts.

French energy ministry recently announced it is increasing its solar power target from 5,400 MW to 8,000 MW by 2020.

In August, the energy ministry doubled the size of its solar power tender for installations of over 250 kWp to 800 MW while in July, the country doubled the size of its tender for mid-sized photovoltaic (PV) power plants to 240 MW.

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