France Achieves 20 Gigawatt Milestone

In 2023, France added approximately 3.2 GW of new photovoltaic (PV) capacity, with about 955 MW installed in the fourth quarter alone. This brought the nation’s total installed PV capacity to 20.0 GW by the end of December 2023. Developers deployed approximately 19.3 GW of the total capacity on the French mainland, with the remaining share installed in the nation’s overseas territories and Corsica.

Comparatively, France added 2.68 GW of PV capacity in 2022 and 2.57 GW in 2021. The aggregate capacity of queued solar projects with grid-connection requests reached 22.4 GW, with around 5.8 GW already under preliminary connection agreements.

The regions of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur and Grand Est accounted for 48% of all newly connected capacity in 2023. These regions also have the highest installed capacities, representing more than 53% of all cumulative power connected in France by the end of December 2023.