France Updates Target To 60GW By 2030!

France has submitted an updated National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) that raises its installed solar PV capacity target to 60GW by 2030.

The new draft adds at least 14GW of installed PV capacity compared to the previous NECP submitted in 2019. By 2035, France aims to increase its cumulative installed PV capacity to 75-100GW.

Although this increase may not be high compared to neighboring countries such as Spain and Italy. Both countries are targeting 76GW and 80GW of installed PV capacity by 2030 respectively, especially Spain, which plans to nearly double its previous solar PV target.

Nuclear power still appears to be an important part of France's electricity decarbonization goals, with the word "nuclear" mentioned 104 times and "solar" mentioned 19 times, many of them in relation to solar thermal, as the draft NECP shows. Last year, nuclear power accounted for 62.2% of France's electricity generation, while wind power accounted for 8.7% and solar power only 4.2%.

At the end of 2022, France had 15.7GW of installed PV capacity, of which 2.6GW was added last year, accounting for more than half of the total renewable energy additions in 2022 (more than 5GW).

Other updated targets include plans to add 5.5-7GW of installed PV capacity per year in France. Most of the new capacity is expected to come from large-scale ground-mounted PV at 65%, rooftop commercial and industrial will account for 25%, and the remaining 10% will be residential solar.

At the level of the PV manufacturing chain, French start-ups are becoming increasingly active, with a number of new module plants announced this year, which are expected to be commissioned in the next few years.

These include a 5GW/3.5GW cell and module plant that Carbon plans to build in the south of France; Holosolis is aiming to build a 5GW module plant targeting mainly residential, commercial and industrial rooftop projects, as well as agricultural PV projects; and Heliup is aiming to secure €10 million ($10.5 million) for the construction of a 100MW PERC lightweight module assembly line expected to be commissioned in 2024.

Germany aims to generate more solar power than Italy, Spain and France combined.

Despite the deadline set for June 30, 2023, several countries have yet to upload their draft NECP updates, including France and Germany. They released their respective drafts earlier this month.

As the largest country in the EU in terms of installed PV capacity, Germany's new targets are unrivaled among the 27 countries, with a projected 215GW of installed solar PV capacity by 2030 and 400GW by 2040, with an annual target of 22GW.When updating its solar targets last year, the German government had already announced targets for 2030 and 2040.

Under the new NECP, Germany's solar PV target is more than double the country's previous projected target of 98GW set in the 2019 NECP. The new target of 215GW through 2030 exceeds the combined planned capacity of Italy, Spain and France, which have targets of 80GW, 76GW and 54-60GW, respectively.

Earlier this year, Germany issued a letter of intent to attract 10GW of solar PV capacity to boost its domestic supply chain.

Several other countries have yet to submit draft NECP updates.