France Aiming for 300 MW of Solar Power

France has announced its intentions to be a world leader in solar power by opening up bidding on May 15 for a 300 MW solar project that would see new solar plants being built throughout the country.

The cost of the project will be roughly $2.03 billion and the country's Minister of Ecology, Jean-Louis Borloo, hopes that all the plants will be built by 2011. So, not only is France looking to produce a lot of solar power, they're trying to do so very quickly.

The country, already fourth in Europe in solar capacity, has about 69 MW installed, so this new project will have to create an additional capacity of 231 MW over the next two years. That's quite an ambitious project, but the country has enacted policies that allow for faster solar plant construction and solar PV deployment, so without the extra red tape, their goal may be easier to reach.

via Cleantech

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written by runescape money, May 21, 2009

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written by Technology Slice, May 22, 2009

It's a pity more countries aren't embracing solar power. It's a clean power source with the capacity to power many of the worlds homes.

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written by bill, May 22, 2009

$2 billion for 300MW of power is way too expensive. There is likely an error in the article somewhere.

is solar really worth it (short-term)?
written by Jeff, May 22, 2009

A quick google search on solar installation costs confirms that $2B for 300MW is about right, but is it really the best use of funds?

Could someone please comment on the comparitive benefits of solar vs. wind?

When you read articles like this that portray 300MW of solar as some kind of huge deal, it seems awfully pathetic compared to the fact that 9 countries ALREADY have more than 3GW of wind capacity installed, with a worldwide installed capacity around 121GW (wikipedia) with the U.S. alone at 25GW and China talking about 100GW by 2050.

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written by Ken Grubb, May 22, 2009

Dr. David MacKay has a dizzying amount of info in his book and on his website.

http://www.withouthotair.com/

Page 216 has some rough costs, for the UK, and wind is far cheaper than solar.

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c28/page_216.shtml

Bottom of page 41 to the top of page 42 shows the energy yield ratio of wind beats solar.

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c6/page_41.shtml

30MW solar energy is huge
written by solar panels, May 23, 2009

I am glad that franch is going to build another 30mw solar parks.I hope they could purchase solar panels from China

some perspective
written by bobbybobington, May 28, 2009

I was curious about what % this would make up of France's current electrical capacity. According to data.un.org in 2006 france had about 116 GW of capacity. This 300 MW would make up about a quarter of 0.25% of this figure.
Good for France for taking a step in the right direction, but lets not kid ourselves. This is a drop in the bucket. It illustrates the scale that we need to conserve and/or increase renewables.

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written by Fred, July 02, 2009

frances is competing with a lot of other countries trying to gain solar power

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written by anjali, May 11, 2010

Can anyone help with the name of the Solar Energy operator which was once a part of the Vivendi group. I think they have also raised some mutual funds for investing in Solar

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written by solar panels, January 29, 2011

Good for France for taking a step in the right direction

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