Parking lot managers have until July 2026 for larger car parks and July 2028 for smaller ones to comply (AFP / PATRICK KOVARIK)
The government confirmed in a decree published Friday the deadline for the obligation to equip existing car parks with solar-powered shade structures, rekindling the anger of large-scale distribution, which is primarily concerned.
The law on renewable energies of 2023 requires outdoor car parks (new and existing) to install photovoltaic shade structures on half of their surface area, infrastructures covered with solar panels allowing both shade and production. energy.
Managers have until July 2026 for larger car parks (more than 10,000 square meters) and July 2028 for smaller ones (more than 1,500 square meters).
Although many companies and communities have started to equip themselves, the mass distribution sector, the first concerned with its 21,000 stores and shopping centers, and its 70 million square meters of parking, requested in April a postponement of the deadline “at least two years”.
This deadline was not granted, but the decree published Friday in the Official Journal specifies that green spaces, storage areas or logistics spaces are not taken into account in the calculation of the parking area.
The circulation aisles are included in the calculation, contrary to what the distribution players requested.
– Sanctions –
For the technical distribution federation (Perifem), this decree on existing car parks “reiterates the errors of the previous decree on new car parks with an extensive definition of the areas concerned”, declared its general delegate Franck Charton to AFP.
“These decisions will have significant consequences by freezing land for decades. The deadlines for implementing the obligation did not even take into account the 18 months of waiting for the publication of this decree, nor the creation of a French photovoltaic panel sector!”, underlined Mr. Charton. “It is improbable and it cannot remain without consequences.”
Car parks are exempt if they benefit from the shade of trees on half of their surface area, at the rate of one tree for every three parking spaces.
“It's hard not to be listened to to this extent by the public authorities!”, lamented Dominique Schelcher, boss of Cooperative U, the fourth largest French food distributor (in photo on August 28, 2023 in Paris) (AFP / ALAIN JOCARD)
The decree also exempts car parks “for which it has been demonstrated that the installation of these devices is impossible due to the excessive nature of the total cost excluding tax of the necessary work”.
The law provides for sanctions of up to 40,000 euros per year for parking managers, until compliance is achieved.
“It’s hard not to be listened to to this extent by the public authorities!”, protested on X Dominique Schelcher, boss of Cooperative U, the fourth largest French food distributor. “We look forward to massive simplification measures in France, as many other countries in the world are currently practicing. Our competitiveness and the strength of the French economy are at stake,” he argued.
