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Solar power in France had been growing steadily in France and is set to continue expanding with a target of around 18-20 GW installed capacity by 2023. By year end 2015, the provisional cumulative photovoltaic capacity reached almost 6,549 MW, after 879 MW was added to the distribution grid during the year, producing 6.7 TWh of electricity duing the year. This made France the country with the seventh largest solar PV installed capacity in the world by year end 2015, behind China, Germany, Japan, United States, Italy and the UK and ahead of Spain, Australia and India. As of 2016 the largest completed solar park is the 300 MW Cestas Solar Park.
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However, an oscillating political support for new installations slowed down PV deployment since the record year of 2011, when 1,700 MW had been installed. In its 2014 report "Global Market Outlook for Photovoltaics", the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA) not only blames the French government for a lack of support, but also criticizes it for having "hastily freeze or reduce support mechanisms" for further photovoltaic deployment. The EPIA also asserts, that opposition from the conventional energy sector led to a negative image of PV technology in the public opinion. The French solar association SOLER urged the French government for more support and submitted a five-point plan in Spring 2014.
In January 2016, the President of France, Mr. François Hollande and the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, laid the foundation stone for the headquarters of the International Solar Alliance (ISA) in Gwalpahari, Gurgaon, India. The ISA will focus on promoting and developing solar energy and solar products for countries lying wholly or partially between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. The alliance of over 120 countries was announced at the Paris COP21 climate summit. One of the hopes of the ISA is that wider deployment will reduce production and development costs, and thus facilitate increased deployment of solar technologies, including in poor and remote regions.
In 2013, an additional 613 MW of PV capacity was installed. This is 45 percent less than in the previous year, when 1,115 MW were installed Of the 242,295 installations completed by the end of 2011, 0.2% were over 250 kW, and made up 38.6% of the total. 89.1% were 3 kW or less, and made up 20.3% of the total.
Insolation
The insolation in France ranges from 3 sun hours/day in the north to 5 sun hours/day in the south. The output of a solar array is a function of age, temperature, tilt, shading, tracking, and insolation.
Subsidies competition
It is expected, from an ecological point of view, that renewable energies develop in France, wind power in the North, solar power in the South. But the competition from the nuclear industry for the subsidies is a huge obstacle to that.
In 1985, the French secret services, working for the nuclear, have sunk the boat Rainbow Warrior from Greenpeace and killed Fernando Pereira. They have lied with a lot of propaganda to keep it secret. Nowadays in France, the French nuclear industry practices very efficient and discrete pressures against the opposition. The French newspaper Le Canard enchaîné reported the case of an activist against nuclear power, shot and killed in the streets of Paris by a killer hired by the nuclear. They practice murder, attempts of murder, intrusions and sadic evocations, breaking the opposition in secret.
Solar power has a role to play in France towards a sufficient, affordable, renewable and clean electricity. To develop, more than everything, it needs money from the State, and in the end, the courage to leave the nuclear.