The renewable energy deployment statistics for France last year have been published by high-voltage grid operator RTE, medium and low voltage peer Enedis, renewables association SER, the Association of Electricity Distributors in France and the Agency for Energy Network Operators.
The nation added around 890 MW of new solar generation capacity last year to reach a cumulative 9,436 MW at the end of December. Curiously, the new capacity figure was exactly the same as that recorded in 2018 with 883 MW of new solar having come online in 2017, 577 MW in 2016 and 899 MW in 2015.
The latest statistics revealed 6.6 GW of approved projects are sitting in the grid-connection queue – around 1 GW more than at the end of September.
The figures also showed PV systems generated around 11.6 TWh of clean electricity last year, a 7.8% rise on 2018 and enough to supply 2.5% of French demand.
A 7.6 TWh fall in productivity from hydropower plants saw the amount of renewable power generated last year fall 0.4% on 2018, to 109 TWh, even though total renewables capacity reached 53.6 GW.
