GoodWe is closing this week a very intense year of attendance to international solar exhibitions with our participation at the EnerGaïa Forum held between the 11th and 12th of December in Montpellier France. This is the first time that the company participates at a French solar exhibition.
France, the 3rd largest European economy and a major global power, traditionally hasn’t been associated with the solar energy. This is starting to change, with France gradually turning into fertile ground for the expansion of the industry, particularly now that the nuclear energy in the country is expanding at a slower pace. On top of being home to many heavy weights in the global energy industry, France is also a major solar power. Only this year France added 1 GW of new solar capacity, ranking 4thin Europe and the solar appetite of France is rising, with expectations that by 2023 it may become the 3rd largest solar power in the continent and one of the largest in the world.
As a large energy consumer, France is truly a market for the different solar segments. In consideration to the potential diversity of this market, GoodWe brought to the Forum EnerGaïa a representative taste of some of its most successful products, including the C & I inverters SMT and MT Series and one of its most successful energy storage inverters, the ET Series.
This year France has risen to become a major market for solar utilities and several international power developers and EPC are aware of the growing number of installations of the GoodWe MT, even across European countries. One important element that caught the attention of many visitors is the low LCOES that the MT-Series has been achieving across a great number of international projects. This is quite significant in France, a country that may be facing higher electricity tariffs in the future due to the relative decline of the local nuclear plants.
Self-consumption in the residential segment has also experienced a rapid progress in France this year, triggering the demand for energy storage inverters. The GoodWe ET Series, an inverter with an outstanding UPS function and many technical strengths for achieving peak-shaving, was also on display at EnerGaïa, attracted many visitors to our booth. The sales of this inverter in Europe have experienced a significant increase, with installations completed this year in Germany, Austria and Spain, a fact helping to reassure potential French customers that were also very pleased to know that GoodWe has set up technical support networks in the European continent.
There are some unique and complex solar markets in the world in which it is hard to get in. With a whole set of required certifications, France is one of them. GoodWe has been working hard this year to meet the French solar market regulations and one of the unmistakable benefits of attending EnerGaïa is that our team got to know first-hand the peculiarities of the market, building as well many new valuable relationships.
Overall this has been a very positive exhibition. With the attendance to this event, GoodWe formally sets foot in France. We trust that this represents the beginning of closer relationship with this important market.
