The European Commission (EC) has approved four French energy renewable support schemes for the production of electricity from wind and solar PV. These schemes aim to help France to produce an additional 7 GW from renewable energies and meet its 2020 target of covering 23% of its energy needs from renewable sources.
The support schemes are namely:
- A land-based wind energy regime that aims to increase the French wind capacity by 3 GW over the next three years, by granting a premium in addition to the market price to operators of medium and large land-based facilities (with more than 6 turbines) or having at least one turbine of more than 3 MW.
- A scheme for large photovoltaic installations on buildings, which will benefit from a 20-year feed-in tariff (FiT) for installations between 100 and 500 kW or a 20-year buy-back premium for installations between 500 kW and 8 MW.
- A scheme for large photovoltaic systems on the ground, that aims to provide support for an additional capacity of up to 3 GW through a 20-year redemption premium during the tenders.
- A support scheme with a maximum capacity of 200 MW for onshore solar and wind installations not exceeding 18 MW.
The land-based wind energy regime has an interim budget of €188m/year (for a total of €3.8bn over 20 years) while the two solar energy schemes will be awarded a combined provisional budget of €232m/year (a total of €4.6bn over 20 years). The last scheme will support both onshore wind farms and solar installations, with an interim budget of around €6m/year (or a total of €124m over 20 years). The facilities or the companies which will become beneficiary of the four schemes will be selected by means of calls for tenders to be organized between 2017 and 2020.
The Commission assessed the four schemes in terms of EU state aid rules, which ensure limited recourse to public funds and the absence of overcompensation and concluded that the measures in question will increase the share of electricity produced from renewable energy sources in line with the EU's environmental objectives, while the distortions of competition generated by State support will be limited.