From green gases to floating solar, this quintet show the appetite for renewable energy in France

I recently interviewed French energy transition minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher, who was frustrated that France’s renewable energy success stories were not widely known.

In particular, she was animated about the fact that France has – and indeed has always had – the same percentage of renewables in its energy mix as Germany (read the full interview here).

So with that in mind, I thought I’d highlight five renewable energy projects in France that we here at Power Engineering International believe show the scope and ambition of some of the companies driving the energy transition in France.

1: French startup Holosolis is to build a solar PV gigafactory in Moselle. Touted to be Europe’s largest, at full capacity the plant will have a production capacity of 5GW per year, producing 10 million photovoltaic modules annually.

2: The BioBéarn facility (pictured below)in Mourenx, built by TotalEnergies, is thelargest biogas production unit in France and is now feeding biomethane into the natural gas transmission network.

3: Power generation equipment manufacturer Kohler Power Systems has switched from conventional diesel to hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) to run engines at its headquarters and generator manufacturing plant in France.

Generator at Kohler Power System’s site in Brest.

4: France has significant offshore wind potential, and Iberdrola is currently building the 62-turbine Saint-Brieuc offshore in waters off Brittany windfarm. However, the Spanish energy giant also sees the potential of solar in France. It won a tender for four agrovoltaic projects with a total capacity of 12MW in a renewable energy innovation tender launched by France’s Ministry for the Energy Transition. And it will build its first French floating solar plant on a flooded gravel pit in Alsace. The project will then power local homes.

5: Gasification technology company EQTEC is to lead a €1 million technical and commercial feasibility study for waste-to-renewable gas on the site of a decommissioned coal plant in Meyreuil, Aix-en-Provence, France.