Voltalia, a producer of renewable energy, has launched the construction of a 8.2-MW solar power plant in France.

The 8.2-MW power plant is one of the projects won by Voltalia during the 2013 national solar tender. The plant will be located in the city of Alleins, in the Bouches-du-Rhône area of France. In accordance with the call for tenders, one half of the plant will be equipped with high-efficiency photovoltaic modules; the other half will include concentrating photovoltaic modules with a tracker system following the sun’s path. Unlike commonly used photovoltaic panels, lenses on the panels concentrate sun rays on high performance cells, optimizing the use of the solar resource.

Voltalia has chosen to equip the fixed part of the Carrières-des- Plaines plant with SunPower high-performance E-Series solar panels. SunPower, a majority-owned subsidiary of Total SA, will produce the majority of the solar panels in its French facilities.

“We are pleased to support Voltalia by supplying a total of 18.3 MW of high efficiency solar panels for this new power plant as well as two other solar facilities in the region 1,” said Peter Aschenbrenner, executive vice president of SunPower. “Our three solar plants currently in construction in France, totaling 22.4 MW, demonstrate our teams’ ability to use best-in-class technology. This allows us to enhance both the efficiency and the reliability of the future plants, which is key in a long-term investment perspective,” said Sébastien Clerc, CEO of Voltalia.