A 300 megawatt solar farm south of Bordeaux in France will deliver clean electricity at a price far cheaper than new nuclear power stations.
Producing more than 350 gigawatt-hours annually; Neoen’s massive solar project will generate electricity the equivalent of the entire power consumption of the population of Bordeaux. The facility is more than double the size of France’s next largest solar farm, the 115MW Toul-Rosières Solar Park.
Electricity from the new solar plant will be sold at 105 euros per megawatt-hour; well below new nuclear power stations at Hinkley Point in Britain (around 130 euros) and France’s latest EPR nuclear reactor at Flamanville (around 115 euros). Costs of constructing these nuclear facilities has also blown out spectacularly.
France is currently the seventh largest producer of solar electricity in the world. By the end of March this year, cumulative PV capacity in France had reached 5.2GW, fifty times the total capacity it had in 2008. France’s peak year was 2011 when 1,700 MW of PV capacity was installed.
In related news and closer to home, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has announced the first of tens of thousands of solar panels have been installed at another project involving Neoen; the $40 million 10.6 MW solar + storage installation at DeGrussa Copper-Gold Mine in Western Australia. The plant is expected to offset approximately 5 million litres of diesel annually.
“This is another demonstration of how rapidly construction of solar PV plants can advance in remote locations once projects are underway,” said ARENA CEO Ivor Frischknecht. “The plant at Degrussa is expected to be up and running in a little over seven months from commencement.”
ARENA is providing $20.9 million to support the project and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) has committed up to $15 million in debt finance.
Another Australian project for Neoen is the $250 million Hornsdale Wind Farm near Jamestown in South Australia. Construction of Stage 1 has commenced and once the wind farm is fully completed, it will generate enough power to supply 180,000 homes. Up to 250 jobs will be created during the construction phase.
