France to cancel FIT program's domestic content bonus

The French government has submitted to the country’s Energy Council a proposal to eliminate the domestic content bonus within the country’s FIT scheme. According to the website of French lawyer Arnaud Gossement, the government has decided to change the regulation because it is not compliant with EU law.
The bonus, which comes on top of the FITs paid to the system owner, is set at 5% or 10%, depending on the components used in the PV system. To be eligible, PV systems must use components manufactured in the European Economic Area (EEA). PV systems on residential building (FIT T1), systems with simplified integration (FIT T4) and ground-mounted PV plants (FIT T5) relying on crystalline modules receive a 5% bonus if the system’s modules were produced – from the wafer transformation process to the completion of the solar cells – in the EEA. If the crystalline modules were also assembled and laminated in the EEA, the PV system receives a 10% bonus. As for T1, T4 and T5 systems that use thin-film modules, the bonus is 10% provided that the preparation and deposition phases and the module assembly were carried out in the EEA. The domestic content bonus was introduced in January 2013, and the bonus for T1 and T4 systems came into force on Feb. 1, 2013. Bonuses for the T5 systems were implemented retroactively starting from Oct. 1, 2012.
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