France’s Ministry of Ecological and Solidarity Transition has announced the list of successful bidders for the fifth round of auction for commercial and industrial (C&I) rooftop solar projects of capacities higher than 500 kW for a total capacity of 378 MW.

The average price quoted by the 60 winners in the auction was €0.1019 (~$0.1102)/kWh.

Technique Solaire secured the highest capacity of 79.13 MW, followed by special purpose vehicles (SPVs) of Urba Solar with 57.59 MW and Reden Solar with 36.75 MW.

Technique Solaire bagged the biggest project of 8.28 MW at the Eure-et-Loir department in the Centre-Val de Loire region. Urba Solar won the biggest project of 8.27 MW at the Cher department in the Centre-Val de Loire region, whereas Reden Participations secured the biggest project of 3.18 MW in the Occitanie region.

The largest project awarded in the auction was to Ferme d’Akuo 12 for a 31 MW project at the – Côte-d’Or department in the Bourgogne Franche-Comté region.

In terms of regions, the Nouvelle Aquitaine region attracted the most bids with a total capacity of 65.93 MW, Centre-Val de Loire region with 56.44 MW, and Occitanie region 51.54 MW.

In April this year, during the fourth round of auction, 16 successful bidders were announced for a total capacity of 57.57 MW, and the average price proposed by the successful bidders was €0.1045 (~$0.1129)/kWh.

In September 2022, 23 winners were selected to develop 89.82 MW of rooftop solar installations in the third round. The average price proposed in the auction was €0.0909 (~$0.0983)/kWh.

Further, in the second round in April 2022, 34 winners were selected to develop 122.14 MW of rooftop solar installations, and the average price proposed by the winners in the auction was €0.0853 (~$0.0922)/kWh.

Earlier in March last year, France had announced the winners of its first round of auctions for C&I rooftop solar and ground-mounted solar projects for the 2021-26 period under the country’s PPE2 or the multi-year energy procurement program. The list had 52 winners for the C&I rooftop solar projects and 71 ground-mounted solar projects from across the country.

The multi-year energy procurement program is an attempt by the French government to achieve total decarbonization by 2050 using low-carbon energy sources.

France installed 601 MW of solar capacity in the first quarter of 2023, compared to 596 MW installed in the same period of the previous year. Solar generated 3.6 TWh of power in Q1 2023 from the 3.2 TWh during the same period in 2022.