Hanwha Q Cells kicks off operation of low-carbon panels in France

Hanwha Q-Cells, the green energy spinoff from Hanwha Solutions, announced Monday that it began the operation of a 55MW-capacity solar photovoltaic power plants in France.

Located in the premises of 75 hectares in Gien, the central-northern part of France, the power plant has been installed by TotalEnergies, a French energy company. Its maximum power generation capacity, 64GWh, is comparable with the amount of power spent by 20,000 South Korean households over the span of one year. Over the next 30 years, the power plant is expected to reduce around 550,000 tons of CO2.

Hanwha’s new plant in France has also won the French Energy Regulatory Commission’s low-carbon footprint certification, which was introduced in 2011. The program is designed to benefit the operators that emit less by calculating the total amount of CO2 emissions throughout the manufacturing process of modules, also serving as a basic criterion of bidding for the project. Among the modules sold by Q Cells in France, 70% were low carbon certified.


Hyung-Seok Seo skytree08@donga.com