From pv magazine France
Sergies, the renewable energy unit of Sorégies, has completed a 2.7 MW floating PV array on a flooded quarry in Saint-Maurice-la-Clouère, in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France.
The plant was built by French contractor GSM. France-based panel manufacturer VMH Energies supplied the PV modules. The project was built on an old quarry owned by GSM.
The solar panels, assembled by VMH in Châtellerault, are fully removable and recyclable. The electrical engineering work – as well as the installation of the structures and the modules – was handled by Bouygues Energies Services, a unit of French conglomerate Bouygues S.A.. The floating structures were supplied by Ako Industries, while Novanautic/Nautischaphe handled the installation and anchoring.
This plant will produce more than 3.3 GWh of electricity per year, Sergies said. The total cost of the project is €3 million ($3.5 million).
Residents of several local municipalities backed the project with a crowdfunding effort last summer on the Lumo platform, raising €150,000. About one hundred subscribers participated in the initiative. Projects built with a certain percentage of financing from crowdfunding also benefit from an additional incentive on the top of the one granted under the country's tender scheme.
If all the artificial lakes in France hosted PV systems, they could cover the needs of 3 million homes – heating and domestic hot water included, said Sergies.
In June 2019, the Compagnie Nationale du Rhône (CNR) unit of French energy giant Engie, inaugurated its first floating solar plant, on Lac de la Madone, in southern France's Rhône Department. Later in March of this year, CNR said it had started planning a 30 MW floating array in the municipality of Châteauneuf-du-Rhône, Drôme Department.
*The article was updated to reflect that the plant has an installed power of 2.7 MW and not 27 MW, as reported by mistake in the article's body text.
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