France plans new structure to develop PPAs

France is working on a plan to facilitate industrial consumers' access to power purchase agreements (PPAs) with renewable power plant developers, likely to be implemented next year.

In the new structure proposed by the economy ministry, the French government would assume counterparty risk in PPAs, the economy ministry told Argus. The scheme is targeted at energy-intensive industries in the short term but may be offered to smaller consumers at a later date.

The ministry expects to implement the plan by 2022 to start from 2023. The new plan will probably be included in this year's finance bill, the ministry added.

The PPA terms would be identical to the renewable subsidy tenders issued by French regulator CRE.

A working group was set up in March 2021, following a joint initiative from French environment and economy ministries, to propose a new financial structure encouraging PPAs between renewable energy producers and large industries, inspired by the Spanish model.

France currently has 27.42GW of installed wind and solar capacity, compared with 25.97GW in 2020. The country is targeting a 40pc renewables share in its power mix by 2030.

By Tatiana Serova