Ie Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) [Fatih Birol, en 2020] talks about solar as “new king of energy markets”. In 2022, 268 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity were deployed – the equivalent of thirty-three EPR nuclear reactors [European Pressurized Reactor] in terms of annual electricity production – of which 41 GW in the European Union (EU). In France, yet the historical epicenter of solar energy, we are painfully exceeding 2 GW for the second year in a row, while the Netherlands installs 4 GW per year.
The sun provides clean, abundant energy, well distributed geographically, quick to implement and which massively contributes to the decarbonization of our human activities while allowing decentralized and resilient electricity production. The photovoltaic panels, which are already 95% recyclable, do not contain any rare earths or metals.
Thanks to the drastic reduction in production costs and the continuous increase in yields, they are already making it possible to produce very competitive electricity. Since 2000, electrical renewable energies have received 43 billion euros in subsidies. Since 2022, due to the rise in the price of electricity, they no longer cost the State anything and generate revenue: at the end of 2023, two-thirds of the subsidies paid in twenty-one years should be reimbursed.
Solar energy also has the advantage of adapting to a multiplicity of uses thanks to a whole range of technical variations and innovative solutions. It combines intelligently with other forms of energy production, in particular wind power and hydroelectricity, and is easily associated with storage means (batteries, hydrogen or pumping stations), thus making it possible to meet the challenges of variability, with a perfectly controlled system cost.
Control the entire value chain
For all these reasons, it must take a major place in the future five-year program on energy and climate 2024-2028, and France must massively increase its objectives for the deployment of solar thermal and photovoltaic energy.
Beyond the issue of energy production, solar is also an industrial challenge that we must collectively take up. Europe – which is the world’s second largest solar market in terms of installations – must reclaim an industry of international scope. Europe let go of its industry when it dominated the photovoltaic world fifteen years ago. China covers 85% of world demand, whereas it started from a blank slate at the end of the 2000s. India – with its “Production Linked Incentive” – and the United States – with their Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) – woke up. Closer to home, Turkey is also shaping up to be a future solar power.
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