How to identify renewable projects in France

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The renewable energy sector in France is evolving rapidly, driven by new regulations, ambitious territorial objectives and a growing number of projects led by both public and private stakeholders. For companies looking to position themselves effectively in this market — developers, installers, engineers, operators or specialised service providers — the ability to identify opportunities at the right moment has become a major competitive advantage.

This article presents a comprehensive two-part methodology: first, the upstream detection of projects through local public signals, administrative documents and territorial dynamics; and second, the precise identification of calls for tenders once buyers formally publish their technical or financial needs. Together, these two approaches enable truly strategic monitoring, allowing companies to anticipate demand, guide their commercial efforts and maximise their chances of success in an increasingly competitive environment.

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1. Identifying upstream renewable energy projects

Upstream identification of projects is one of the most powerful levers to anticipate upcoming markets in renewable energies in France. At this stage, the objective is not to identify calls for tenders already published, but to identify weak signals, local political decisions, strategic orientations and administrative procedures that announce the future emergence of photovoltaic, wind, biomass, methanisation, geothermal or storage projects.
In France, this work is complex for a simple reason: the territory has 36,000 municipalities, each with its own publications, its own portals, its own organisation. Understanding the French renewable ecosystem upstream therefore requires a precise analytical capacity and above all a very broad collection of local public data.

It is not sufficient to follow the publications of the municipalities, but it is also necessary to follow the different agencies or public bodies of the State which publish authorisations making it possible to identify projects sufficiently upstream.

To go further, you can also read our article dedicated to identifying opportunities in energy infrastructures in France through local decisions and regulatory signals.

1.1. Exploiting municipal deliberations: a source of local information

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The deliberations of municipal councils are one of the sources to detect renewable energy projects before their official launch.
Every month, municipalities vote on budget envelopes, preliminary studies, investment projects, decisions to install photovoltaic panels on public buildings, energy renovation programmes, charging station projects and authorisations to launch technical consultations.

These deliberations are public, but published on thousands of distinct websites, with heterogeneous formats (scanned PDFs, Word files, HTML pages, digitised newsletters).
The challenge is therefore twofold: regularly retrieving these thousands of scattered documents, and then identifying in their content the weak signals that precede a future project (studies, consultations, budget allocations, strategic decisions).
It is precisely in these documents that projects such as photovoltaic installations on public buildings, canopy projects, EV charging stations or renewable heat deployments are born.

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1.2. Other sources of information from local authorities

Municipal magazines: Many municipalities publish a municipal magazine or local information bulletins. These publications, often neglected, nevertheless contain announcements of projects under study, political decisions, indicative calendars, development intentions and local energy orientations.
This local press, sometimes available only in PDF or image format, can reveal projects several months before the appearance of a formal call for tenders.
Orders and decisions: Beyond deliberations, the mayor regularly publishes orders, authorisations, decisions taken under his delegated powers and technical notes related to municipal infrastructures.
These documents can confirm the real progress of an energy project or announce an important administrative step (studies, consultations, authorisations, requests for opinions).

Minutes and reports: Minutes of municipal or inter-municipal councils provide a more detailed vision, including discussions on local energy strategies, adoption of multi-year plans, budgetary arbitrations and partnership agreements or conventions.
They make it possible to anticipate decisions several weeks before their administrative formalisation.

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1.3. Exploiting renewable energy acceleration zones (ZAEnR)

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Renewable energy acceleration zones (ZAEnR) were created by the APER law of 10 March 2023, following a European initiative to define priority zones for renewable energies. Each municipality must now identify, after public consultation, zones favourable to the development of photovoltaic, wind, geothermal, biogas, solar thermal or hydroelectricity, as well as zones possibly excluded.

These proposals are sent to the prefect, then to the Regional Energy Committee, which checks whether they make it possible to reach regional objectives. If not, the municipalities must complete their zones. Municipalities do not have to define exact installations, but only the most suitable areas according to local potential. A ZAEnR may therefore concern any type of plot or building.

Finally, ZAEnR constitute a key indicator of future projects: their approval foreshadows renewable installations that may be subject to calls for tenders. Monitoring them makes it possible to anticipate the market and to position oneself upstream.
Even if these zones do not constitute a “short-term” market, they are a tremendous tool to anticipate the territories where projects will be facilitated, to understand the strategic orientation of municipalities, to identify areas where competitiveness will be lower and to prepare commercial actions months or years in advance.
These zones make it possible to know where projects will be developed tomorrow — and therefore where to invest commercial effort.

You can find examples of renewable energy acceleration zones by consulting our article dedicated to ZAEnR.

To identify renewable energy projects in France, particularly in the photovoltaic sector, Calls for Expressions of Interest (CEIs) are a key early-stage indicator. To learn more, you can read our dedicated article on CEIs in the solar sector.

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1.4. Identifying renewable projects through Environmental Authority opinions

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Renewable energy projects subject to impact studies must obligatorily request an opinion from the Environmental Authority (Ae). This opinion is public and constitutes a very precise source on future projects, notably for wind farms, ground-mounted photovoltaic plants, storage projects, classified installations and large canopy structures.

The opinion generally includes the technical description of the project, the project owner (private developer), the precise location, the planned capacities, environmental constraints and the next administrative steps.
For companies specialising in civil engineering, engineering, construction, EV charging infrastructure, networks or operation-maintenance, these opinions make it possible to identify markets months or years before any formalisation of tender procedures.

Attention, it is very important to understand that projects subject to the Environmental Authority’s opinion will not all materialise: many will eventually be abandoned by the private companies that initiated them or will not obtain the requested authorisation. They nevertheless remain a valuable indicator of project dynamics by region and department, and constitute a true mapping of developers’ pipelines, offering an excellent basis for competitive intelligence.

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Want to go further in identifying photovoltaic tenders and projects in France? Discover our full analysis in the dedicated article.

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1.5. Monitoring building permits related to renewable installations

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Building permits are another vector for upstream identification. They concern ground-mounted photovoltaic plants, solar rooftops, canopies, wind farms, photovoltaic sheds, extensions or modifications of existing installations.

The analysis of permits makes it possible to monitor the real evolution of a project on the ground.
Monitoring building permits in general is also very valuable for identifying commercial opportunities in renewable energy projects. Indeed, even when a permit is not directly related to a renewable energy installation — for example when it concerns a storage zone, a warehouse or a large building — it reveals that a private company is carrying out a real estate project that may offer large solarisable roof surfaces, thus constituting an opportunity for renewable energy actors.

It is therefore important to understand that monitoring building permits meets two major objectives: on the one hand, tracking requests related to renewable energy projects and anticipating future calls for tenders; on the other hand, detecting construction projects in other sectors that can subsequently become energy opportunities.

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1.6. Exploiting strategic documents (SRADDET, PCAET, SCoT, PLU)

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Major local or regional energy strategies guide the future location of projects.
Among the useful documents: SRADDET, PCAET, SCoT and PLU/PLUi.

These documents, sometimes large but extremely rich, make it possible to anticipate favourable areas for solar power, constraints for wind power, development corridors, self-consumption policies and local ambitions regarding renewables. They constitute a strategic planning tool to work “before everyone else”.

Identifying renewable projects “upstream” makes it possible to arrive before competitors, to approach decision-makers at the right time, to position oneself on future markets, to prepare adapted offers, to anticipate technical needs and to detect a volume of opportunities invisible in calls for tenders.
This work relies on multi-channel monitoring that is dispersed, complex, heterogeneous and almost impossible to perform manually without data intelligence tools.

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Conclusion – The strategic importance of public data to identify private business

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It is essential to recall that even if all the information mentioned in this first part comes from public data, this absolutely does not mean that the opportunities identified are limited to the public sector. On the contrary, these data constitute one of the best means of detecting private business ahead of everyone else.

The monitoring of building permits or opinions issued by environmental authorities is not only used to anticipate public calls for tenders: these signals offer precise visibility on all private project developers who develop photovoltaic, wind, methanisation or storage installations. Each permit application or environmental review request corresponds to a private company investing in a future project.
It is also important to underline the growing importance of large private buildings (logistics warehouses, industrial platforms, commercial surfaces, renovated agricultural sheds, data centres, etc.) which offer large solarisable roof surfaces. Monitoring their building permits makes it possible to identify very early which private companies are constructing or renovating buildings, which surfaces will be available, which energy projects will be possible and which private developers it is relevant to approach.

Moreover, many private projects are not intended to become public calls for tenders. A developer, an industrial company or an investor may very well seek private partners, builders, engineers or specialised service providers directly.

Thus, behind every authorisation, every deliberation and every environmental opinion, there is potentially a project carried by a private actor. For companies in the renewable energy sector, this upstream monitoring constitutes a direct source of commercial development, making it possible to approach private decision-makers very early before any formal competition.

If you are more specifically interested in photovoltaic activities, we invite you to read our dedicated blog article, which explains in detail how to identify calls for tenders and photovoltaic projects in France.

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2. Identifying calls for tenders in the renewable energy sector

The identification of calls for tenders constitutes the second essential step after the upstream detection of projects. Unlike weak signals, calls for tenders correspond to a precise moment in the life cycle of a project: the moment when the buyer formalises its request, publishes a technical, administrative or financial need, and expects candidates to deliver a structured response. For renewable energy actors — developers, installers, operators, technical service providers, consulting firms or builders — monitoring these publications constitutes a strategic activity.

To learn more about identifying international energy tenders, consult our dedicated article.

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2.1. Not every call for tenders is published: understanding legal publication obligations

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French calls for tenders are not all subject to the same publication obligations. The rules depend on: the amount of the contract, the type of procedure (formal procedure, MAPA, adapted procedure, etc.), the type of buyer (State, local authority, public establishment, public company).

Thus, many low-value calls for tenders are never published. They are not subject to any online publication obligation, and therefore no monitoring — even the most efficient — can detect these contracts. It is therefore essential for companies in the renewable energy sector to understand that monitoring, even optimal, will never be exhaustive.

What can be monitored, however, are all the publications that are mandatory or voluntarily put online by buyers, beginning with the major institutional platforms.

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2.2. Monitoring the main platforms publishing calls for tenders

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For France, monitoring must imperatively cover the following national platforms:

BOAMP (Official Bulletin of Public Procurement Announcements), the national reference platform.

TED Europe, the European platform mandatory for contracts exceeding European thresholds.

These two sources concentrate the majority of formal calls for tenders, including in renewable energies (works, intellectual services, operation-maintenance, EV charging infrastructure, photovoltaic site works, engineering contracts, plant operation contracts, etc.).

To these national platforms are added regional platforms, mandatory in some areas, recommended in others, but unavoidable if one wants to efficiently monitor local public procurement.

Each region has its own purchasing platform, for example: Maximilien for Île-de-France, Megalis for Brittany, and other equivalent platforms in each French region.

These portals concentrate a large part of the contracts of local authorities and territorial public institutions, often linked to renewable energy projects: rooftop photovoltaics, canopies, EV charging stations, biomass boilers, district heating networks or energy renovation projects.

Beyond institutional platforms, there are other places of publication that must imperatively be monitored such as Websites of public companies (SNCF, GRDF, Enedis, RATP, ports, airports, housing agencies, etc.), Local newspaper, Legal notice journal, Private buyer profiles or platforms authorised to publish calls for tenders on behalf of various buyers

These sources are very numerous and heterogeneous. Some public companies do not systematically publish their contracts on the major portals: they use their own systems, sometimes dedicated to certain types of services or certain geographical areas.

This is precisely what makes monitoring heavy and complex. On this subject, we recommend reading our specialised article explaining how to set up an efficient monitoring of French public procurement.

Manual monitoring of calls for tenders is extremely time-consuming, technically difficult, legally risky if a publication is missed, and ineffective given the explosion in the number of sources to monitor.

For these reasons, it is strongly recommended to rely on professional solutions, in particular specialised platforms such as Deepbloo, designed for the energy sector and capable of automatically extracting: the important metadata, the documents (tender rules, DCE, CCTP), the useful technical information.

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2.3. Quickly identifying published calls for tenders: immediate access to key documents

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Good monitoring must be able to identify a call for tenders as soon as it is published and quickly extract the essential information or redirect rapidly to the documents. This requires immediate access to: the contract notice (structure, dates, subject of the contract), the tender rules (règlement de consultation), the Dossier de Consultation des Entreprises (DCE), which includes the administrative documents (CCAP, RC), the technical documents (CCTP), the annexes necessary for the response.

Depending on platforms, these documents may be freely downloadable or accessible only after mandatory registration on the relevant platform.

Efficient monitoring must therefore be able to handle both cases.

Receiving 1,000 calls for tenders per week or only 1 results in the same problem if the calls for tenders are poorly targeted. What matters is not quantity, but quality.
Efficient monitoring must allow advanced filtering by: geographical area (municipality, department, region),buyer, type of contract, technical category (power, voltage, surface, capacity, type of works, type of installation, etc.).

The objective is simple: to receive only the calls for tenders relevant for the company, no more and no less.

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2.4. The strategic role of calls for tenders: immediate opportunity and long-term commercial approach

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Responding to a call for tenders is often a race against time, with a limited deadline and sometimes complex specifications. It is not always easy to win a contract on a first response if one does not already know the buyer.

Tender monitoring therefore serves two objectives:

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Objective 1: Respond to calls for tenders to obtain short-term opportunities

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This is the classic use: identify a call for tenders, analyse the DCE, prepare an offer and attempt to win the contract.

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Objective 2: Understand which buyers publish which types of projects

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Indeed, knowing which buyer publishes which type of contract and with which requirements makes it possible to approach them upstream, prepare a commercial strategy, and therefore significantly increase chances of success for future contracts.
This is where monitoring takes on its full strategic value: it makes it possible to anticipate, to understand and to enter buyers’ commercial cycles before competitors.

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Conclusion – Complete monitoring must combine upstream detection and precise tracking of calls for tenders

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Optimal monitoring in the renewable energy sector cannot be limited to a single aspect. It must, on the contrary, combine two complementary dimensions: the ability to detect projects as upstream as possible, through the monitoring of weak signals from local authorities, administrative procedures and environmental publications, and the ability to effectively monitor calls for tenders published by public and semi-public buyers.
It is this dual approach that allows companies to position themselves at the right moment, to understand the real market dynamics and to maximise their chances of success.

In a context where volumes of information are increasing significantly and projects are becoming more complex, a platform capable of ensuring both types of monitoring — and adding a fine analysis of industry-specific data (power, surfaces, voltages, installation typologies, etc.) — has become absolutely essential. This is precisely what Deepbloo offers, today one of the major references in this field.

To discover how Deepbloo can transform your monitoring and your commercial strategy, you can request a demo by clicking here.

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