France's recent tender round for rooftop photovoltaic (PV) arrays and solar shadehouses concluded with a notable undersubscription, resulting in the award of only 180 MWp of capacity, the government announced on Thursday.
The competition, part of the seventh call under the national PPE2 tender programme, aimed to allocate 400 MWp of solar capacity. The Ministry of Solidarity and Ecological Transition selected 50 winning projects, marking a decline from the 90 projects awarded 362.2 MWp in the previous tender round.
Winning bidders in the seventh call offered an average price of EUR 101.69 (USD 110.82) per MWh, slightly lower than the EUR 102.10/MWh recorded in the previous tender.
Among the successful companies, Montpellier-based Urbasolar emerged as the leading recipient with 47.4 MWp, followed by Greenyellow securing 26.9 MWp, and Reden Solar with 18.9 MWp. Neoen clinched the largest project size with a 17.6 MWp rooftop scheme, according to data from consultancy Finergreen.
Details of all awarded projects are available on the government's official website.
France's PPE2 programme, launched in 2021 and set to conclude in 2026, aims to tender nearly 29 GW of solar PV capacity across various categories. The next round for rooftop installations is scheduled to open on July 26, 2024, with a targeted allocation of 300 MWp.