PV magazine revealed in a January 21 news item that the European Commission has given the green light to a tender mechanism the French government has conceived to enable the construction of solar plants with 300 MW of capacity. The new facilities are intended to replace generation at the country’s Fessenheim nuclear power plant – the country’s oldest.
The commission said the project selected through the tender will receive a premium tariff under a 20-year contract, and the tender’s budget is approximately €250 million.
The 40-year-old Fessenheim nuclear site, in the Haut-Rhin department of Alsace in northeastern France, is set to be decommissioned by next year. The plant has seen more than one temporary shutdown due to safety issues. One of the most high-profile issues occurred in April 2014, when Reactor 1 was shuttered. The French Nuclear Safety Authority reported at the time that internal flooding in the non-nuclear part of the reactor had damaged safety electrical systems. After being repaired, the reactor was reconnected to the grid in May the same year.