I was looking to get some PV panels installed. Went and asked for some quotes and lo the French installers quoted like they were going to install gold panels. Like 40% premium on a battery. When I asked what is the premium for and could the quote be lowered, total radio silence. I cannot claim any subsidy at the moment as my main income is outside France. Like is this normal to get such exorbitant quotes ?
I brought my own PV system (3.6 kWh) from UK and wanted to install that. I checked that inverter and battery all are valid in France. I asked an English electrician if he could install and the guy managed to quote half the price of my equipment(5k) as labour under the guise of NORMES. Now have asked another French electrician to come around to see what he says. It seems to be cheaper to get an electrician from UK to travel and install it for me. I can do most of the stuff just need someone to connect the supply to the mains. No interest in selling to the grid.
You might have more luck offering to source the panels yourself.
There again, any half decent French electrician has a calendar which is full for at least the next six months so will probably feel that they can do without the stroppy English customer and their non French-certified PV install.
Like it or not the French are sticklers for having qualified artisans (not just electricians) who insure their work. Although this is in the name of consumer protection you might argue (and I would not disagree) that it is counterproductive to have so few suppliers in the marketplace as demand>supply tends to drive prices up. It does not actually stop the problem of cowboys either.
But the bottom line is that Solar PV in France has to be with kit certified to French Normes and installed by a suitably PV qualified electrician - you arenât going to change that and if you do âget a mate over from the UKâ pray nothing goes wrong because you will be holding the can if it does.
Is there a website or resource somewhere to check if my equipment follows the Normes ? I googled and saw the Normes website and saw that ? Or should I ask an installer ?
Your kit should have a certificate of conformity (inverter/micro inverter and batteries) meeting DIN VDE 0126-1-1/A1. Thats the actual requirements to be grid tied. The certs of conformity are required in the enedis application.
The 240V distribution/trips etc is then to French NFC15 - so that kits NF marked. But thatâs either installed by a pro - or youâll need Consuel approval.
Hard to be sure what you want/need - thereâs plenty of online warehouses for solar - most will link you with an installer.
Come install some strange kit you donât know with your decenelle insurance isnât going to have local trpades falling over themselves.
But battery will put all your costs up - if you want it to be a backup incase of power cuts it wonât be a cheap install.
Equally whoâs doing the various paperwork - you or the installer- thatâs an additional cost
As stated all french electricians are busy all of the time so having to come over to you and not have to do a full install would be far quicker for them but would still get in the way of going fishing, shooting etc. All they would have to do is a double check of your circuit and be happy to certify its safe. Connecting to the DB requires a step up from off grid and additional costs. Panels and charge controllers and inverters have very few and very similar connections so easy to do but with high current additional safety is neccessary. Even in the UK once you start connecting to the mains the DNO get involved and costs rise. Same here in France I expect, not enough of the network engineers to go around so waiting and paying for the specialist takes additional time and money. Putting your setup off grid would be far simpler but you would need additional wiring and sockets to separate things from the grid supplied equipment. Electricity being half the price of the UK for most of the time the UK is the most obvious place for an install. Yes we try to go green but at every twist and turn is more red tape and money which is why humans willâŚ
Having had exorbitant quotes, I installed my own system which is not connected to the grid. Apparently this is acceptble as there is no danger of me crashing the entire French network (it wouldnât do that anyway). As I am a retired E&I engineer it was relatively simple and I now have 20kW of panels with a 44kWh battery backup. All of the switchgear and protection devices meet the French norms, but in order to connect to the grid would entail an etremely costly âinspectionâ. Since I have no intention of selling surplus back to the grid, my system is standalone and if necessary I can switch off the solar supply and reconnect the âmainsâ. Once I am happy the system is fully operational I will probably cancel my contract = no sense in paying for something I wonât use - but the connection will still be there if needed in the future.
I whole heartedly commend what you are doing, but just need to point out that inspections by CONSUEL are not ruinously expensive. Even the undiscounted rates for private individuals arenât too bad.
As of today (13/07/2025) an inspection of a single alternative energy source with no storage costs 199,88⏠TTC.
An inspection of a single alternative energy source with storage (i.e. with batteries) costs 228,84⏠TTC.
If you start to add other energy sources the price does increase as each type of production needs itâs own certificate i.e. if you had solar & wind generation youâd need two inspections.
Any installation capable of injecting more than 3kWc into the grid needs a CONSUEL attestation. ALL installations need to declare their existence to ENEDIS, with supporting documentation that the inverter(s) comply.