Photovoltaic: new details on announcements and a bonus for aesthetics
Batirama.com 02/11/20200
Several contradictory announcements: the retroactive reduction of the duration of contracts reappears, the feed-in tariffs are severely reduced, but a premium for aesthetics could reappear.
The photovoltaic support policy in France is an endless saga, always full of twists and turns, each more brutal than the last. Remember, last week, the Government had plans to go back on its word: a proposed amendment to the 2021 Finance Law aimed to reduce, retroactively, the duration of purchase obligation contracts concluded before 2011 for the production of electricity from photovoltaic installations.
But the Finance Commission of the National Assembly had rejected this amendment. We thought the case was solved. Not at all: the same text comes back through a government amendment.
Retroactive duration reduction for contracts over 250 kWp
According to Tecsol, which always follows these issues with extreme attention, during a press briefing held on October 29, the Ministry for Ecological Transition and an adviser to the Minister Delegate to the Minister for the Economy, presented the government position.
The measure concerns 20-year contracts signed during the period from 2006 to 2010, when the support tariffs were particularly high: €300/MWh for ground power plants, €600/MWh for installations on buildings .
Between 2006 and 2010, Tecsol points out, the cost of photovoltaic installations began to fall. But the purchase prices have not been changed. As usual, these attractive conditions created a strong development of installations, bordering on the speculative bubble, before the second government of François Fillon put an end to it by imposing a sudden moratorium on new installations in December 2010. In the second quarter In 2011, the call for tenders mechanism managed by CRE appeared to replace the previous system.
The reduction in purchase prices for the fourth quarter of 2020 weighs more heavily on small installations of less than 9 kWp. ©PP
Continue consultation?
The revision of the duration of contracts concluded before 2011 was to be introduced in the initial finance bill (PLF), then had been withdrawn by the government to make way for consultation with the sector, which was totally opposed to this change.
It is making a big comeback through a new amendment presented by the government which concerns contracts concluded for powers of more than 250 kWp. Does this no doubt mean that the consultation has borne fruit and that the sector and the government have agreed to ensure that everyone's interests are respected?
According to the government, the annual expenditure for these contracts is between 600 and 800 million euros and the new measure should lead to savings of 300 to 400 million euros per year. But here it is, it is not the result of a consultation, but a unilateral decision of the State.
Daniel Bour, president of Enerplan, the union of solar energy professionals, immediately denounced an "incomprehensible and unprecedented" revision. "The questioning of the signature of the State, is a disaster at the time of the energy transition", he reacted to AFP, believing that this measure would pose a problem of "trust".
“An incomprehensible and unacceptable decision”
For Daniel Bour “this announced measure is simply incomprehensible and unacceptable. I have the impression that the Government does not measure the scope of this questioning, which seriously calls into question the confidence placed in its word. The choice to announce this measure now, while the government is calling for the mobilization of economic agents within the framework of the Energy Transition and the Recovery Plan, is a call. And yet there can be no Recovery Plan without trust. »
“Any revision of a contract, whatever it may be, requires that the signatories negotiate to find a new agreement acceptable to the parties. There is still time to choose this path and to stop this amendment. If, despite everything, the amendment is tabled then I call on the parliamentarians, who will examine this provision, to show more discernment, at the risk of creating a new de facto moratorium on renewable energies. “”, he also argued.
Comparative table published by CRE. © CRE
Small installations < 9 kWp are also penalized
Professionals are therefore asking the government to abandon its amendment and return to the negotiating table. Especially since they have other reasons for dissatisfaction. Indeed, the new decree of October 23 on the new tariffs for the purchase of electricity produced by photovoltaic installations of less than or equal to 100 kWp treats large installations better than small ones.
Enerplan, the Renewable Energies union, points out that the new decree limits the reduction in purchase prices for installations with a power between 36 and 100 kWp: they will be €98.7 MWh instead of €93.6 /MWh, if the new decree had not been issued. On the other hand, for domestic installations < 9 kWp, the reduction in purchase prices is accelerated by the new decree, both concerning the prices for the total sale of production and the premiums, called Pa, for self-consumption with resale of the surplus. The rate of decline from one quarter to another for this power segment increases from 0.5 to 1.25%.
Enerplan points out that "However, this is in no way linked to a reality of the fall in the cost of these installations, nor to an explosion in the number of connections, which have been stable from one quarter to the next for almost 10 years. . We had alerted to this anomaly before it went to the Higher Energy Council and proposed amendments for it to be modified during its examination, and then by intervening directly with the Ministry of Ecological Transition. It has, however, appeared without modification”.
The Ministry of Ecological Transition, it seems, does not like small installations and deals better with large ones. He announced the forthcoming appearance of a call for tenders window for projects of up to 500 kW on buildings and for carports.
Designed by architects Atelier du Prado and Celkinier & Grabli, the France Pavilion at the next Universal Exhibition in Dubai will be covered with Sunstyle photovoltaic tiles produced in Châtellerault. ©Cofrex
The return of the integration bonus?
Remember, France had invented the concept of "building integration" and for years had supported it with an increase in feed-in tariffs for electricity from built-integrated installations. , even introducing Byzantine distinctions between built integration and simplified integration. Before gradually abandoning it after the 2010 moratorium.
On October 15, Barbara Pompili participated in the official launch of the Sunstyle Factory in Châtellerault. This new factory should manufacture 1 GW/year of Sunstyle solar tiles by 2025. These are textured glass plates, 870 x 870 mm, taking photovoltaic cells in a sandwich, with powers varying from 115 Wp to a black tile at 85 Wp for a colored tile.
This technology, which simultaneously provides coverage, watertightness and electricity production, has been certified by TÜV Rheinland and is approved by the CSTB (Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment). It is also one of the solutions labeled by the Solar Impulse Foundation.
Finally, Sunstyle tiles were chosen by the Cofrex (Compagnie Française des Expositions) to cover the roof and facade of the France Pavilion at the Universal Exhibition in Dubai, which should open in November 2021. In short, it is a superb French solution. – a bit of Swiss origin all the same – which is also pushed by the European Solar Power Association within the framework of the European Green Deal.
Undoubtedly not wanting to be outdone, Barbara Pompili therefore announced on October 15 “a boost to the solar sector integrated into buildings with the granting of a bonus for those who choose these technologies in 2020 and 2021” . Since then, like Sister Anne, we see nothing coming. And the new tariff decree of October 23 does not mention it. ©Prefect of Vienne on Twitter
Source: batirama.com / Pascal Poggi
