The French government has awarded projects with a combined capacity of over 1.1 GW in its latest tender for onshore wind power capacity that aims to back the country’s 2030 renewables targets.
The competition has ended up with 73 winning proposals selected at an average price of EUR 85.29 (USD 92.88) per MWh, the Ministry of Ecological Transition announced earlier this week.
While it targeted to award 925 MW, the government designated 1,156 MW of projects as winners in the oversubscribed round. As many as 120 applications totalling 1.8 GW were submitted.
When installed, the 73 projects will add capacity that will generate around 2.6 TWh of electricity per year, or enough to meet the electricity demand of around 500,000 homes.
The tender was conducted under France’s PPE2 multi-year energy procurement programme, through which the country seeks to allocate 28.9 GW of renewable capacity through 2026, including close to 10 GW of onshore wind. The scheme envisages holding two tenders per year for 925 MW each between 2022 and 2026, with the next bidding window for 925 MW of projects to be open on October 9, the government said.
France has set a goal of lifting the share of renewables in its power generation mix to 40% by 2030 and making renewables account for 33% of final energy consumption by the same year.
(EUR 1.0 = USD 1.088)