France eyes additional 750MW of renewable capacity

The French ecological transition ministry has laid out plans to facilitate the connection of power generated from renewable energy sources (RES) to the electricity grid, which could allow for an additional 750MW of capacity to be deployed by 2030.

The deployment of installing additional RES capacity comes amid a decree signed by the ministry that offers renewable energy producers in France the possibility of asking network operators for an "alternative connection offer". This alternative is expected to be cheaper and faster than the current benchmark offer, the ministry said in a statement yesterday. Network operators are currently obliged to offer a connection to the grid guaranteeing producers the ability to inject electricity at any time.

Under the decree, the energy produced through renewable sources could be capped, within foreseeable limits, and contracted between the producer and the grid operators.

Network operators including Enedis and RTE can temporarily derogate from the current sizing rules for electricity network installations. This is the result of a decision taken by the ministry regarding the optimisation of transformer stations to allow for more RES production facility connections to the distribution network. This would allow grid operators to free up new connection capacities without having to change the actual infrastructure.

"These measures are fully in line with our policy of accelerating the deployment of renewable energies in France, which puts us on track to achieve our energy policy objectives," ecological transition minister Barbara Pompili said.

The current multi-year energy plan forecasts the country's total RES capacity rising to 73.5GW by 2023, up by 50pc from 2017 levels (see table), and to 101-113GW by 2028.

By Florence Schmit