Faced with soaring electricity prices, the French are turning to the sun

This is the case in Normandy at the Demgy factory, equipped since June with photovoltaic panels on the ground which now provide 15% of its electricity.

Initially, there was the desire to decarbonize this production of lightweight plastics for aeronautics, explains marketing director Corinne Demange. “Then the rise in energy costs accelerated” the project, she adds, noting its “higher profitability than expected”.

Unprecedented boom

Since the energy crisis of 2022, companies, individuals, tertiary sectors and communities have shown an appetite for "self-consumption", the fact of consuming electricity that we produce ourselves, and of which we can resell the electricity. surplus to the State via EDF.

Out of 842.000 renewable energy producers in France, 437.000 are today "self-consuming" individuals and small professionals equipped with panels of less than 36 kilovolt-amperes (kVA), according to Enedis, which manages the electricity distribution network.

This is almost twice as much as at the end of 2022, four times more than at the end of 2020, adds this EDF subsidiary, which covers 95% of the territory.

Residential self-consumption last year represented a third of new photovoltaic installations in 2023 in France, underlines Daniel Bour, president of the professional union in the solar energy sector Enerplan. For him, “self-consumption is here, and this movement has no reason to stop!”.

Resurrection

But France has room for progress: 440.000 self-consumers are just 1% of the 37,5 million customers subscribed to Enedis.

Mr. Bour notes the delay compared to the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and even Germany.

Because for a long time “electricity prices have been lower here” than elsewhere, he explains.

In the 2010s, photovoltaics also had to withstand the decline in support from the French state. “The government considered that solar was too expensive,” describes the sector representative. The bubble also attracts unscrupulous actors, technical setbacks are numerous...

Ultimately, underlines Daniel Bour, "the market was completely broken, only to resume in the 2020s", with Covid, climate and energy concerns, which fuel a need for "autonomy".

Who and where?

“A year ago, we were wondering how we were going to get through the winter” with several nuclear reactors shut down, recalls David Gréau, general delegate of Enerplan. "The geopolitical situation also played a role in the apprehension of the future. With self-consumption, we buy production over a long period, with a 25-year guarantee, a buyback of the surplus for 20 years, few maintenance costs. maintenance".

The phenomenon is not regional: more than 80.000 self-consumers in Occitanie, 44.000 in Paca, but Grand Est and Hauts-de-France combined have nearly 50.000.

Enedis also notes "a strong interest in collective self-consumption", which consists of sharing the electricity produced between several people: in 2018, France had six operations of this type, there are 305 at the end of 2023 (+220% compared to 2022), including 181 supported by communities, 43 by HLM landlords.

The company Effy, which sells to individuals, is putting forward an “anti-inflation solution”, while the government announces a new increase in electricity prices on February 1 (+40% in two years).

What about depreciation?

It is “an investment which makes it possible to neutralize the rise in prices and brings additional value to the heritage”, argues Audrey Zermati, strategy director of Effy, which has many young clients with moderate incomes.

According to her, the amortization time has gained three years since the crisis, going to 6-9 years but the UFC-Que Choisir spoke in March of profitability over 20 years, at the time when the State was raising its feed-in tariffs ( to which is added an investment premium).

The overproduction of Chinese modules, particularly deprived of the American market, has recently reduced project costs.

For profitability, the Enerplan union does not give an overall figure. On the other hand, he cites the importance of new habits adopted by the user, attentive to their production and consuming at the right times.