France added a record of almost 2.8GW of new renewables capacity to the mainland grid in 2017, bringing the total to just under 49GW, according to a new report.
The report, ‘Panorama of Renewable Electricity’, was released by French transmission system operator RTE, renewables group SER, the country’s electricity distributors association ADEeF and Enedis.
It said 2763MW of new capacity was installed last year, with wind and solar representing 65% and 32% respectively. Some 1166MW were added in the last quarter alone.
Total installed capacity of 48,685MW takes France 94% of the way towards a 2018 target of 51.7GW, it added.
Some 89 terrawatt-hours of renewable power was generated last year accounting for 18.5% of electricity consumption in the country.
Almost 1.8GW of new wind capacity was added last year bringing the total to around 13.6GW. Output from wind was 24TWh, up 14.8% on the previous year, the authors said.
Solar capacity grew by 887MW to 7.66GW in 2017, with production at 9.2TWh, an increase of 9.2% on the previous year.
Bioenergy reached almost 1.95GW with 31MW connected last year, while hydro added 48MW bringing the total to more than 25.5GW.
All the figures do not include new installations at French overseas territories.
Image: Pexels
‘Record year’ for French RE
By EBS