French solar industry vulnerable

Analysis: French solar industry vulnerable to government curbs

Dec 20, 2010 - France's solar industry could suffer a big blow by government moves to deflate a speculative bubble fed by a boom in connection demands and a backlog of solar power projects in the pipeline.

The French government said this month it wanted to cut the number of solar power projects and above-market purchase tariffs for the renewable electricity for the third time this year.

No new projects will be approved until February 2011, when the government decides on a new framework, a moratorium small and medium-size firms say will be fatal for the sector.

"It's over, it's finished," Mathieu Debonnet, head of Altus Energy, said. "They are killing this embryo of green economy." {continued}