• Corbas, with its 16 MWp in total capacity, is France’s largest photovoltaic shade project
• Its solar panels will help protect the new vehicles on the site from bad weather
• Neighbors have contributed to financing for the project. They provided €1.2 million within 4 weeks in crowdfunding to the project, making it the largest and most rapid fundraising for a solar project in France under the terms proposed by the CRE (French Energy Regulatory Commission).

Neoen (ISIN Code: FR0011675362, Ticker: NEOEN), France’s leading independent producer of renewable energy, and one of the fastest-growing worldwide, is today announcing the commissioning of the first tranche of its Corbas project located south of Lyon. With its 16 MWp in total capacity, Corbas is currently France’s largest photovoltaic shade project.

The project is located in the municipalities of Corbas and Saint Priest in the Rhône department. It consists of car park shades covering a 12.5-hectare area and will protect new vehicles at the storage facility from the region’s sometimes violent storms, as well as generating green electricity for the power grid. The power plant has been built in two tranches: The 7.8 MWp Corbas 3 tranche is now in service, while the 8.5 MWp Corbas 1 tranche will enter service in April 2019. Corbas is set to generate 20,000 MWh of green electricity p.a., equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of 8,800 inhabitants, or around 80% of the population of the Corbas municipality.

Both project tranches are fitted with SunPower (subsidiary of the Total group) panels and were built by Bouygues Energie Service. The shades were manufactured by the French group Heliowatt.

€1.2 million in crowdfunding raised for the project

To give neighbors the chance to help fund this eminently local project, Neoen launched in October 2018 a crowdfunding campaign for each of the power plant’s tranches. They were offered returns of 6% p.a. over periods of 4 (Corbas 1) and 3.5 years (Corbas 2), and the crowdfunding campaign was a great success, closing in just four weeks and raising a total of €1.2 million. The Lendosphere, Wiseed and Lumo platforms were involved in the project financing

Xavier Barbaro, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Neoen, commented: “Corbas has been a success for Neoen on three fronts: it is France’s largest photovoltaic shade project, it crowdfunded part of its financing in record time, and neighbors have contributed to the project. We are thrilled and very proud, and we sincerely wish to thank the Lyon metropolitan authorities, our partners and the residents of the Ain, Isère, Loire, Rhône and Saône-et-Loire departments. Without their help, we could never have gone ahead with such an ambitious project.”