French authorities selected 16 projects (58 MW) in the third round of rooftop electricity tenders at an average final price of €104 ($114.30)/MWh, 15% higher than the September 2022 tender. The authorities selected seven tenders, i.e. 115 MW capacity, at an average price of €82.2/MWh, which is 20% higher than in the previous tender.
France’s energy regulator, the Commission de régulation de l’énergie (CRE), has published the results of the third tender for ground-mounted and commercial and industrial rooftop installations.
The final round of French renewable energy tenders was undersubscribed, with final prices rising significantly. Finergreen, a French consulting company specializing in renewable energy, analyzed the latest results and compared them with the results of previous tenders.
“ have a financial failure to meet the financial security requirement of the latest version of the tender specifications, it appears that they did not meet the financial security requirement, which rendered their bids invalid, Finergreen said in a recent report on the procurement process. “This situation mirrors the results of the most recent tenders for onshore wind and ground-mounted solar – both released in the past two weeks – where many developers met the same fate with their applications.”
CRE allocated only 58 MW of the originally planned 400 MW in the undersubscribed C&I rooftop electricity tender. It selected 16 projects at an average final price of €104/MWh, which is 15% higher than in the September 2022 tender. The regulator selected only seven projects from ground-mounted solar power plants with a total capacity of 115 MW, compared to the original expectation of 925 MW. The final average price was €82.20/MWh, i.e. 20% higher than in the August 2022 tender. Selected developers included Q Energy, Neoen and Kronos Solar.
The French government has announced plans to tender for 1.5GW of ground-mounted solar and another tender for 800MW of rooftop capacity to compensate for the high failure rate of recent tenders.
