France's Latest Draft of The New Energy Plan

France's latest draft of the new energy plan: photovoltaic installation targets have been greatly reduced, and local manufacturing is on the agenda

The French Ministry of Ecological Transition released the final draft of the Multi-annual Energy Plan (PPE3), proposing that by 2035, the national cumulative photovoltaic installed capacity target will be 65-90GW, lower than the previously planned 75-100GW target.

According to the latest target, France needs to add 4GW each year before 2035 to reach the 65GW target, and to achieve 90GW, it needs to add 7GW each year. France added 3.2 GW of photovoltaic installed capacity in 2023 and 3.5 GW in the first nine months of 2024. It still needs to speed up the promotion efforts to achieve the 2035 target.

According to the draft of PPE3, France plans to carry out two rounds of ground photovoltaic power station bidding every year from the first half of 2025, with a scale of 1GW each round. In addition, three rounds of rooftop photovoltaic project bidding will be held every year, with a scale of 300MW/round. At the same time, the government will also launch a 500MW technology-neutral project tender covering photovoltaic, hydropower, and onshore wind power projects.

According to the plan, small and medium-sized rooftop projects will account for 41% of France's total photovoltaic installed capacity in 2030, small ground photovoltaic projects will account for 5%, and the remaining 54% will be large projects. For agricultural photovoltaic projects, the government plans to set up a special bidding mechanism, and the specific plan is still to be determined.

In addition, PPE3 also sets production capacity targets for each link in the photovoltaic manufacturing industry chain by 2035, including 3-5GW of silicon materials, 3-5GW of silicon ingots and silicon wafers, and 5-10GW of cells and modules.

As a strategic roadmap for energy production and consumption in France from 2025 to 2035, PPE3 has been publicly solicited for comments on the official website of the Ministry of Ecological Transition, and the publicity period is from March 7 to April 5, 2025.

However, it is worth noting that the French government recently proposed to retroactively reduce the feed-in tariff (FIT) for rooftop photovoltaics, which has caused concerns in the photovoltaic industry.