Michael Sebastian
Between August 19 and 30, France will open tenders for ground-mounted photovoltaic (PV) projects with a capacity of 925 MW. Concurrently, from August 26 to September 6, tenders for building-mounted PV projects will aim for a total capacity of 300 MW. The building-mounted PV tenders will mark a shift from life cycle analysis (LCA) carbon footprint requirements to a “country mix” approach, where each country will receive a carbon score applied to imported solar components.
France’s Directorate General for Energy and Climate (DGEC) and Directorate General for Enterprises (DGE) announced these tenders, totaling 1.225 GW of solar energy, in anticipation of France’s new multi-year energy plan (PPE) and the new government composition. These tenders are part of a broader effort to expand renewable energy sources in the country.
The ground-mounted PV tenders will include solar installations on sheep and cattle farms and other agrivoltaic projects based on their height. The aim is to ensure that significant agricultural activities can continue beneath the solar panels, aligning with France’s renewable energy production acceleration goals.
A significant change in the carbon footprint criterion will be introduced in the building-mounted PV tenders. The traditional LCA method will be replaced by a “country mix” approach to promote European-made panels. This new method assigns a carbon score to each country, applied to modules, cells, or wafers imported from there, potentially extending to all photovoltaic mounting systems if successful.
The shift from LCA to the “country mix” approach aims to reduce fraud and promote French and European solar panel production. While the LCA method encouraged Chinese manufacturers to improve their production lines’ environmental impact, the new methodology seeks to provide a more straightforward and potentially more transparent way to assess and compare the carbon footprints of solar components from different countries.
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