France has made up some lost ground against its neighbors with the start to construction of what will be Europe's biggest photovoltaic solar power plant.

 

Solar power capacity has grown slowly in France compared to Germany, Spain or Italy. It had 5,095 MW of photovoltaic capacity in June, which accounted for only 1 percent of its energy consumption in the first half of the year, and compares with nearly 37,000 MW in Germany.

 

The new plant at Cestas is a 360 million euro ($450 million) project capable of supplying electricity to a city the size of nearby Bordeaux for a year.

 

The project is managed by Neoen, a Paris-based company created by Jacques Veyrat, the former head of commodities trading giant Louis Dreyfus.

 

The 300-megawatt, ground-mounted installation will be connected to the grid in October 2015 and provide electricity for 105 euros per megawatt-hour over 20 years, a price showing solar is becoming increasingly competitive, its developers say.

 

Xavier Barbaro, Neoen's chief executive, compared it to state-owned utility EDF's Hinkley Point C project in Britain, which will receive a guaranteed power price of 92.5 pounds, or 117 euros per MWh for 35 years.

 

"We're below the price of new nuclear electricity in Britain. So the parity between nuclear energy which is costing more and solar which continues to drop is happening now, in 2014," Barbaro told Reuters.

 

"Four or five years ago, nobody thought that would be possible before 2020," he said.