New French solar farm, Europe’s biggest, cheaper than new nuclear　via Reuters

French energy group Neoen on Tuesday inaugurated a 300 megawatt (MW) solar farm, Europe’s biggest, which will produce power at a price below that of new nuclear plants.

Built on a 250-hectare site south of Bordeaux, the plant will provide power for 300,000 people and cost 360 million euros. It will sell power at 105 euros per megawatt-hour (MWh) for 20 years, well below the cost of power from new nuclear power reactors.

“We will deliver power at an extremely competitive price, similar to wind power, and at any rate cheaper than the cost of power from new nuclear plants,” Neoen Chief Executive Xavier Barbaro told reporters on Tuesday.

French state-controlled utility EDF plans to build two nuclear reactors in Hinkley Point, Britain, which will produce power at a government-guaranteed price of 92.5 pounds per MWH, or about 130 euros. EDF’s existing French nuclear reactors, mostly built in the 1970s and 1980s, produce power at a cost of around 55 euros per MWh.

Barbaro said the facility’s solar panels are not oriented toward the south, but on an east-west axis, which allows them to produce three to four times more power for the same surface area.

[…]

Read more.