French farmer is new sun king:

WEINBOURG, France (Reuters) - Bright winter sun dissolves a blanket of snow on barn roofs to reveal a bold new sideline for Jean-Luc Westphal: besides producing eggs and grains, he is to generate solar power for thousands of homes. Economic crisis has cast doubt on funding hopes for many big renewable energy projects, but the giant panels built into roofs on this sloping farm at the foot of the Vosges hills in eastern France are attracting attention from farmers to financiers.
Westphal is one of a small but growing band of farmers in the European Union's biggest agricultural producer who are taking up new incentives for solar power to supplement farm incomes as well as help France meet renewable energy targets. "We're trying to go a bit beyond agriculture to earn our living in a different way," said Jean-Luc Leonhart, an old classmate of Westphal's visiting his friend's project with a view to installing solar panels on his own farm.
In a mountainous region famed for Munster-Gerome cheeses and good quality white wines, Westphal is working on a grand scale. His built-in panels form one of the largest integrated installations of photovoltaic systems -- which generate electricity direct from solar power -- yet built. The 20 million euro ($26 million) investment means constructing five enormous sheds covered by 36,000 square meters of solar panels with a capacity to generate 4.5 megawatts (MW) of electricity, enough to power 4,000 homes.
"It's quite a gamble," said Westphal, who runs the farm with his brother. The size, combined with a government guarantee of long-term electricity contracts at an inflation-linked "feed-in" tariff, helped win the scheme bank support. Banque Populaire jointly financed Westphal's project with Credit Agricole, France's leading lender to farmers.
"It was the economies of scale that convinced them," Westphal said. The farmer expects to generate 2 million euros a year in electricity sales from his solar site. The type of solar-panel roof Westphal is using -- known as "integrated" because the panels are built into the roof rather than superimposed -- is booming in France thanks to legislation creating 20-year contracts with strong incentives to sell electricity to the grid.
At 0.55 euros per kWh, integrated solar photovoltaic panels generate nearly twice the revenue of ground-mounted and superimposed solar panels.The built-in technology is encouraged by the authorities as aesthetically acceptable, in a country where wind farms have been sharply criticised as eyesores.