As at 30 June 2026, 905,348 self-consumption photovoltaic installations were connected to the French grid. They account for 68% of the country's generating installations — but for less than 20% of its capacity. This is no longer a hobbyist's curiosity: in sheer numbers, it is now the majority regime of France's generation fleet.
Since 5 June 2026, the surplus they export has been bought at 1.1 euro cents per kilowatt-hour — while the same kilowatt-hour, consumed on site, saves you from buying one at 20.01 cents. A ratio of eighteen to one. And the investment grant no longer exists.
A kWh sold earns 1.1 cents, the same kWh consumed on site saves 20.01 — the order of 1 June 2026 did not merely cut a tariff: it shifted the question. It is no longer your roof that decides whether the investment pays, it is your daily schedule.
What this article covers
What the order changes, article by article, and where the protection of applications filed before it actually sits. Why the regulator settled on 1.1 cents. What a 6 kWp installation is now worth, in euros. And the misconceptions circulating since June — including one we very nearly published ourselves.
What the order of 1 June 2026 changes, article by article
The order of 1 June 2026 (NOR reference: ECOR2609281A) was published in the Journal officiel no. 0129 of 4 June 2026, text no. 29. Its provisions have been in force since 5 June 2026, the day after publication. It is the ninth order amending the order of 6 October 2021, known as "S21 Bâtiment", which sets the terms on which building-mounted photovoltaic electricity is purchased.
One clarification first, and it has practical consequences: the order of 1 June contains no tariff at all. It rewrites articles of the 2021 order. The correct citation is therefore "article 8 of the order of 6 October 2021 as amended by the order of 1 June 2026", never "article 8 of the order of 1 June 2026". A wrong citation sends the reader to a text that says nothing.
The tariff: 1.1 cents, indexed by 2% a year
Article 8, in the version now in force, is brief: "The amount of this purchase tariff TPa is equal to 1.1c€/kWh excluding VAT" (our translation). It adds: "This purchase tariff is subject to indexation of 2% a year. That indexation takes effect on each anniversary of the date on which the purchase contract took effect."
Two consequences that most commentary leaves out. The tariff is not frozen: at the end of the twenty years it is worth roughly 1.6 c€/kWh. And the quarterly scale has gone — until 5 June 2026, annex 1, "Tarifs d'achat et primes" (purchase tariffs and grants), stepped the tariff down according to the volume of applications filed. A single tariff has replaced it.
To take the measure of the trajectory, you have to go back a little.
| Since | Purchase price of the surplus (0-9 kWp) | Investment grant |
|---|---|---|
| Before March 2025 | 12.69 c€/kWh | 22 c€/Wp (≤ 3 kWp), 16 c€/Wp above that |
| March 2025 | 4 c€/kWh | 8 c€/Wp |
| 5 June 2026 | 1.1 c€/kWh | abolished |
In fifteen months, payment for the surplus has fallen elevenfold and investment support has disappeared.
The grant: repealed, and not where you think
Article 9 of the order of 1 June 2026 runs to a single sentence: "Article 9 of the same order is repealed" (our translation). That is article 9 of the 2021 order — the one that carried the investment grant, commonly called the self-consumption grant.
Many publications write that it is "article 8" that was repealed. That is wrong, and the mistake is understandable: the order renumbers in cascade everything that follows, the former article 10 — the annual export cap — becoming article 9.
If your application was filed before 5 June, you keep everything
This is the question that worries people most, and the answer is reassuring — but it is not to be found where you would look for it. Read the order of 1 June 2026 in full: it contains no grandfathering clause for installations of 100 kWp or less, its only transitional provision covering projects above 100 kWp whose application predates 22 September 2025. You might conclude that nothing protects applications in progress: that would be an error of method.
Article R. 314-12-1 of the French energy code provides that revisions of purchase terms "apply neither to installations covered by a contract in force on the date those orders enter into force, nor to installations that were the subject, before the latter entered into force, of a complete application for a contract" (our translation). Deriving from a decree, it binds a ministerial order, which cannot depart from it — and the order of 1 June 2026 expressly refers to it. It therefore had no need to repeat it.
That leaves the question of what a "complete application for a contract" is. Article 4 of the order answers it, including in its new wording: stating, in the connection request, that the producer wishes to benefit from the purchase contract "is deemed to constitute an application for a purchase contract" (our translation). A complete application validated before 5 June 2026 therefore keeps the tariff and the grant of its quarter, for twenty years — and that is how EDF Obligation d'Achat (EDF OA — the French statutory offtaker) presents the text, under the heading "Concernant les DCR à partir du 05 juin 2026" (regarding connection requests filed from 5 June 2026).
One point of vigilance, however, predates the reform: article 5 requires the installation to be completed within twenty-four months of the contract application. Beyond that, the term of the contract is reduced by the overrun.
⚠️ The trap we very nearly fell into ourselves: the CRE (Commission de régulation de l'énergie — the French energy regulator) gave its opinion on the draft order on 29 April 2026 (deliberation no. 2026-92). That draft provided for a tariff "which does not change over time" and "paid only during time steps where the spot price is positive or zero" (our translation). The published text retained neither. Commenting on the reform from the regulator's opinion — a primary, official, authoritative document — therefore leads to publishing two false statements: an opinion bears on a draft, and only the published text makes law.
Why 1.1 cents: the regulator's calculation
The figure looks punitive. It is not: it is an estimate of market value, and the CRE has documented it.
Your surplus arrives at the worst possible moment
On wholesale markets, electricity is expensive when it is scarce and cheap when it is plentiful. Residential surplus, however, is exported at the top of the solar bell curve, between midday and 4 pm — precisely when every other panel in the country is exporting too. This is solar cannibalisation: the more simultaneous photovoltaic output is, the more it depresses the price at the very hours when it occurs.
The CRE puts a figure on the effect. The capture rate of the exported surplus — the ratio between the average price this electricity actually obtains and the average price of a baseload block — stood at 33% in 2025, against 58% for photovoltaic output as a whole. The economic value of the exported surplus was around 20 €/MWh, that is 2 cents per kilowatt-hour. The 1.1 cents retained by the order are those 2 cents less the management and balancing costs borne by the buyer.
The tariff is not, then, a political ruling against solar. It is what a market pays for electricity delivered at the very moment when nobody is short of it.
What a kilowatt-hour is worth, depending on what you do with it
The counterpart to this cut is that self-consumption itself has lost nothing. A kilowatt-hour you do not take from the grid spares you the full price of that kilowatt-hour — and that price is not limited to the energy.
| Where the kilowatt-hour goes | What it is worth | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Consumed on site, Base (flat-rate) option | 20.01 c€ including tax | regulated tariff, 6 kVA, at 1 August 2026 |
| Consumed on site, peak hours | 21.42 c€ including tax | peak hours / off-peak hours option |
| Consumed on site, off-peak hours | 15.89 c€ including tax | peak hours / off-peak hours option |
| Exported and sold | 1.10 c€ excluding tax | art. 8 of the order of 6 October 2021 as amended |
The asymmetry is explained by the structure of the bill. According to the SDES (the statistical service of the French ministry for ecological transition), the average price paid by French households in 2025 stood at 254.6 €/MWh including all taxes, of which €107.5 for supply, €71.7 for networks (€57.9 for distribution and €13.8 for transmission) and €75.4 in taxes — €36.2 in excise duty and contribution tarifaire d'acheminement (the network access levy), €39.2 in VAT. In other words: energy itself accounts for 42% of what you pay. The rest funds the cables and the State.
A kilowatt-hour generated on your roof and consumed in your home short-circuits all three blocks. A kilowatt-hour that is sold earns payment for the first block only, at the price of the midday trough.
What a 6 kWp installation is worth in 2026
Take a concrete case. A 6 kWp installation — the average capacity of residential connections in the second quarter of 2026 was 6.41 kW — on a house in the Lyon area. Yield there is around 1,290 kWh per kWp per year according to PVGIS, the European Commission's tool — SARAH3 irradiation database, optimal orientation and tilt, 14% system losses. That is 7,740 kWh generated each year.
The same roof, two outcomes
Everything turns on a single variable: the share of that output you consume on site. On real data, the CRE observes that 69% of installations of 0 to 9 kWp fall between 30% and 65% self-consumption. The ADEME (French Environment and Energy Management Agency) uses 25% and 45% as illustrative bounds and notes that "self-consuming 45% of output instead of 25% allows a residential installation of 3 or 9 kWp to become profitable on average 5 years sooner" (our translation). What separates those two rates comes down to one word: synchronisation — shifting the washing machine, the water heater or vehicle charging into generating hours.
| Item | Self-consumption of 25% | Self-consumption of 45% |
|---|---|---|
| Electricity self-consumed | 1,935 kWh | 3,483 kWh |
| Saving on the bill (at 20.01 c€) | €387 | €697 |
| Electricity exported | 5,805 kWh | 4,257 kWh |
| Income from the sale (at 1.1 c€) | €64 | €47 |
| Annual self-generator surcharge | −€10 | −€10 |
| Total annual gain | €441 | €734 |
The result deserves a pause. In the favourable case, selling the whole of the surplus — 4,257 kWh, more than half the output — brings in €47, cut to €37 after the annual surcharge that every self-generator exporting to the grid pays on their subscription. Moving from 25% to 45% self-consumption, by contrast, brings in €293. Managing your consumption is worth eight times selling all of your surplus.
That is the whole shift the reform has brought about: the purchase contract has become an accessory, and behaviour the main variable.
And what about the cost?
A word of caution is needed here: there is no official record of installation prices in 2026. The CRE itself writes that its cost assumption rests on an estimate and not on an audit, and that residential prices are particularly dispersed. The ranges available date from 2024, under an earlier VAT regime.
As an order of magnitude, a 6 kWp installation, fully fitted, comes to between €11,000 and €13,000. At €734 of annual gain, payback runs from fifteen to eighteen years. At €441, it runs from twenty-five to thirty years — beyond the twenty years of the purchase contract, and at the limit of the modules' service life.
What to take from this: the "8 to 12 year" returns on investment still displayed everywhere describe a world that ceased to exist on 5 June 2026. No general range means anything any more: the same roof and the same quote produce two outcomes ten years apart, depending on how you live in the house.
The misconceptions circulating since June
"MaPrimeRénov' pays for solar panels"
No: MaPrimeRénov' (French national energy renovation grant) funds building fabric renovation and heating equipment, not electricity generation. The confusion comes from solar thermal — the collectors that heat domestic hot water — which was indeed covered. And that answer has just changed: since 1 September 2026, under decree no. 2026-822 of 25 August 2026, solar thermal has been removed from the single-measure track ("parcours par geste") in mainland France, where it now survives only within a whole-house renovation. A page promising "up to €4,000 in grants" on a photovoltaic search is therefore mixing two schemes, one of which has just closed — a trade-off we set in context in our analysis of the 2026 finance act.
"Income from the sale is exempt from tax"
Only below 3 kWp, and subject to four cumulative conditions: article 35 ter of the CGI (Code général des impôts — the French General Tax Code) exempts those sales where the installation belongs to a natural person, where its capacity does not exceed 3 kilowatts peak, where it is connected to the public grid at no more than two points and where it is not used for a business activity. The threshold is assessed installation by installation, without aggregation, and a single tax household can have two exempted at most.
Above that, the receipts fall within non-professional industrial and commercial profits, and therefore within the micro-BIC (the French flat-rate micro-business regime). No text states in black and white that selling electricity is a "sale of goods", but the conclusion follows in three links: electricity is tangible movable property within the meaning of II of article 256 of the CGI; the practical income tax guide files sales activities under lines 5NO and following; and the allowance on those lines is 71%, against 50% for the supply of services.
"The 1,600-hour cap is going to penalise me"
The text is clear as to its base: "The quantity of electricity exported above the annual cap, defined as the product of the installed capacity and a duration of 1,600 hours, is not eligible for the purchase tariff TPa" (our translation). It therefore bears on the electricity exported, not on the electricity you generate. For 6 kWp, it allows 9,600 kWh exported a year, when the whole installation generates 7,740 and only part of that goes to the grid. This cap is aimed at high-capacity installations.
What support remains, and what it demands of you
With the grant gone, the main public support has become fiscal: VAT at 5.5% on the supply and installation of equipment of 9 kWp or less in a dwelling, provided for under paragraph P of article 278-0 bis of the CGI and applicable since 1 October 2025. It is not automatic: an order makes it conditional on technical criteria — a module carbon footprint below 530 kgCO2eq/kWp, ceilings on metal content — and, among them, on the presence of an energy management system intended to synchronise the dwelling's consumption with its output. The finance act for 2026 added a qualification requirement for the installer.
The parallel is striking. On one side, an order that makes selling negligible and turns self-consumption into the only source of value. On the other, a tax rule that conditions its main advantage on a piece of equipment whose function is to make consumption and generation coincide. The State has written the same sentence twice, in two texts nobody reads together: manage your consumption.
When the property is sold on, what carries value is therefore no longer the purchase contract, whose yield has become marginal, but the reduction in running costs on record — a mechanism close to green value and its effect on the sale price.
To check before signing a quote: that the purchase tariff used really is 1.1 c€/kWh and not 4 or 12; that no grant appears in it; that the VAT applied is justified by the criteria in the order, energy management system included; and that the self-consumption rate assumed matches your real life, not a brochure.
Mon Simulateur Immobilier solar panel calculator
The calculator applies the purchase tariff in force — 1.1 c€/kWh, indexed by 2% a year, over the twenty years of the contract and within the export cap — and combines your capacity, your region and your real consumption to work out your output, your self-consumption rate and your annual gain. It displays "never pays back" when that is the answer: no abolished grant appears in it, and no flat-rate return on investment is promised.
Conclusion
The order of 1 June 2026 has not killed residential photovoltaics. It has put an end to a model in which you could fit panels without thinking about how you use energy, because the purchase tariff made up for the inattention. What remains is more demanding, and healthier: you size capacity against what you consume, you shift what can be shifted, and you stop treating your roof as an investment product.
Before signing, do the sums with your own figures rather than with a range: the Mon Simulateur Immobilier solar panel calculator applies the scale in force and tells you, without rounding, after how many years your installation is paid off — or whether it never is.
