A roundtable recently held by solar panel manufacturer Dualsun and the GoodPlanet Foundation in Paris highlighted the organizational and regulatory barriers holding back collective solar self-consumption in France, a model its proponents say is technically ready to scale.
Image: Marie Beyer
From pv magazine France
A recent roundtable in France brought together policymakers, utilities, and housing-sector representatives to examine how the country’s collective self-consumption model (autoconsommation collective, ACC) can scale, as grid operators warn that rapid growth in distributed solar is straining a network designed for centralized, one‑way power flows.
The event, held as part of the Vivre Ensemble exhibition in Paris, gathered key stakeholders to discuss collective self-consumption – the practice of sharing locally generated solar power among a defined group of producers and consumers within a given geographic perimeter.
France’s national electricity grid, designed around centralized, continuous power flows, is struggling to adapt to growing volumes of distributed renewable generation. Christophe Gros of Enedis, France’s distribution network operator, said the grid must now manage injection peaks with limited corresponding consumption, and that the solution lies not in consuming more energy but in electrifying more end uses and aligning consumption with periods of low prices.
Rémi Bastien of Enogrid, an ACC platform operator, said the shift in grid dynamics is significant: whereas the network was historically fed by producers on a continuous basis, generation and consumption are now matched in 15-minute intervals. ACC, he said, is becoming the technical lever for smoothing these mismatches and monetizing local production close to end users.
Land and heritage constraints are proving a material obstacle, including for large asset owners. Alice Timsit, representing the city of Paris, acknowledged that not all rooftops in the capital can be equipped for solar, given oversight by France’s historic buildings authority – though she said only 10% of PV projects are currently rejected on those grounds.
To push beyond this ceiling, Paris has formally requested a derogation from the DGEC, France’s energy and climate directorate, to extend the ACC perimeter from the current limit to two kilometers. The aim is to enable larger-scale operations by integrating not only the 25% of Parisian housing stock classified as social housing, but also municipal real estate located in the suburbs.
Social housing represents a significant potential driver of ACC growth in France. Emmanuelle Cosse, president of the Union sociale pour l’habitat, the national federation of social housing landlords, said more than 50% of France’s social housing stock remains dependent on fossil fuels – a legacy of past policy choices. She said the path forward lies not in isolated interventions but in neighborhood-scale approaches that offer greater flexibility, though she acknowledged this requires bringing all parties to the table. She also stressed the need to guarantee supply security and service levels equivalent to existing gas boilers, which in turn requires building a reliable network of qualified professionals able to respond quickly.
When pv magazine France asked about a pending government decree on allocation keys – the rules determining how shared solar output is distributed among ACC participants – the response from the panel surprised attendees. What industry players had flagged as a critical issue was characterized by one panelist as a technical matter rather than a genuine obstacle. Enogrid, which had previously described the allocation key question as critical in comments to pv magazine France, appeared to step back from that position at the event. The issue remains unresolved.
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