French government to combine wind and solar in 200MW auction
The General Directorate for Energy and the Climate (DGEC) in France, which is part of the Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development, has revealed that it is going to hold joint auction for wind and solar power projects in the near future. DGEC are looking to allocate around 200 MW of renewable energy capacity in lots not exceeding 18 MW in size.
This has not been done in France before. Joint renewable energy auctions are being introduced upon request of the European Union. It is hoped that combining the auctions will reduce costs of both renewable energy technologies. As this is yet to be determined, this tender will function as an experiment to test the advantages and disadvantages of technology-neutral tenders as promoted by the EU and to evaluate the relative competitiveness of the two sectors.
Winners will receive support in the form of top-up payments, while projects including citizen participation will receive a higher tariff. The deadline to submit bids is 3 September 2018.
Neither the industry nor the Commission for Energy Regulation (CRE) is in favour of the move. Industry officials have argued that development costs of wind and solar are very different, with the result of combining being that wind projects do not get selected.
The CRE have warned that putting wind and solar in competition could have a negative impact on achieving targets and on the cost of integrating renewable energy into the electricity system.
The French government is currently supporting solar projects ranging in size from 250 kW to 17 MW which were allocated through six 500 MW tenders. These projects are expected to bring another 3 GW of solar power online in the period 2017-2019. The government plans to expand solar power development by raising the capacity tendered by 1-2.45 GW a year. This will contribute significantly to achieving its target of a 32% renewables share by 2030.
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