France exempts energy communities up to 1 MW from excise duty

France's 2025 Budget Law exempts energy communities with projects up to 1 MW from excise duty on electricity consumption. The measure applies retroactively from Jan. 1, 2025, and remains in effect until Jan. 1, 2027.

From pv magazine France

France's 2025 Budget Law exempts electricity consumption from collective self-consumption projects up to 1 MW from excise duty, an indirect tax on certain products. The measure applies retroactively from Jan. 1, 2025, and remains in effect until Jan. 1, 2027.

Previously, the excise duty exemption applied only to individual self-consumption projects.

According to the French renewable energy association Syndicat des Énergies Renouvelables (SER), the extended tax break could save energy communities up to €0.0337 ($0.0347)/kWh.

Patrice Gérardin, director of SerenySun, which oversees several self-consumption projects in France, welcomed the exemption in an interview with pv magazine France.

“As a producer, it allows us to retain our consumer customers over the long term, at a time when regulated electricity prices are falling, while consolidating our business models, particularly with regard to banks,” he said. “In other words, it allows us to undertake projects that we would not normally undertake, because they would simply not be financeable, due to a lack of sufficient profitability.”