Engie exits Reservoir Sun to accelerate solar self-consumption

Launched jointly in 2018 by Engie and GreenYellow, with their sights set on the market for solar shades for outdoor car parks or solarized roofs, the start-up Reservoir Sun (80 employees) should "make 30 million euros in turnover". business in 2024", according to GreenYellow.

“The transaction price values ​​the company at 250 million euros,” Otmane Hajji, founding president of GreenYellow, of which Reservoir Sun becomes a 100% subsidiary, told AFP.

“This is GreenYellow’s biggest acquisition this year,” he said, announcing other additional acquisitions to come in Portugal and Spain.

GreenYellow, created in 2007 by Casino, was bought last year by the large French investment fund Ardian.

Reservoir Sun, with 150 MW in operation for 350 installations at the end of 2023 and a project pipeline of 1,2 GW, holds around 20% of the French market for solar self-consumption for tertiary, industrial companies and communities, according to him.

For Engie, "this is not a step backwards in the decentralized photovoltaic market, on the contrary", explained to AFP Frank Lacroix, deputy general director of Engie, in charge of the activities of the Energy Solutions subsidiary.

“We want to be in a position to be able to accelerate in this market, everyone becomes independent,” he says. However, “when we are in a 50-50 subsidiary, we cannot do that”. The time had come "given the size of this market which is set to develop very strongly, to be able in France as elsewhere to develop all our industrial know-how", he added.

The French solar self-consumption market is clearly on the rise, according to the research firm Xerfi. Among companies, it "remained almost embryonic until 2022" but "is preparing to change scale" with an installed base which "should more than double by 2025 then almost triple from 2025 to 2030 with 23.000 units installed", according to Xerfi.

In addition to high energy prices, this high-power self-consumption market will benefit in particular from increasingly favorable regulations, with the obligation of solarization for new non-residential buildings and large car parks.