France surpassed 10 GW of grid-connected solar generation capacity in the first three months of the year, after installing almost 7,000 new solar parks, most of them in the sunny south of the country, according to the French Ministry of Energy’s Department of Data and Statistical Studies (SDES).
The nation’s grid-connected PV capacity reached 10.1 GW at the end of March after 182 MW of solar was connected in the first quarter.
PV power generation in the period amounted to 2.3 TWh, an increase of 3% compared to the same window in 2019, according to the SDES figures, as solar power accounted for 1.7% of French electricity consumption in the first three months.
France added 6,933 new installations in the first quarter, with the 182 MW added an annual rise of 7%, the SDES reported. The additional solar plants pushed total capacity in the country to 10,072 MW, up from 9,892 MW at the end of last year.
The first quarter of last year brought 6,994 new installations with a combined capacity of 170 MW.
The new connections this year were mainly concentrated in the southern regions of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Occitanie and Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, which between them supplied 122 MW of the new generation capacity.
