‘Win-win’: Octopus Energy will give free solar-covered storage sheds to French farmers

London-based Octopus Energy says its solar projects on French farms will come with free storage sheds.

In collaboration with local partners, the clean energy company plans to build 100MW worth of new rooftop solar projects across “hundreds of French farms” by 2030, it said in a statement.

“The partners will build large sheds with solar panels on the rooftops on farmers’ land,” the company said. “Farmers benefit from using the new buildings for free to store equipment, vehicles and hay, saving tens of thousands of euros they’d have each spent building the structures themselves.”

Alex Brierley, co-head of Octopus Energy Generation, said: “This is a win-win for farmers and Octopus Energy.

“Putting the roofs of farm buildings to work by installing solar panels means farmers get a free structure to store equipment and we can generate more clean power quickly and easily… These innovative small-scale projects distributed around the country shine a light on the future of renewable generation.”

Octopus sells the solar energy generated from these rooftop systems into the French grid, a spokesperson told The Progress Playbook.

The company manages 13 onshore wind farms, 14 solar farms, and a number of rooftop solar projects across France, and plans to invest a cumulative €1 billion in the country by 2025.

France, which gets around two-thirds of its electricity from nuclear plants, has around 20GW of solar capacity and sees the technology as key to its decarbonisation goals.

Solar comprised 4.5% of the country’s electrical output in 2023, according to data collated by Ember. That’s up from 1.9% five years before.