Ciel & Terre, history of a floating solar pioneer

The story of a commitment to renewable energy and innovation

Ciel & Terre was founded in 2006 by Bernard Prouvost, an entrepreneur convinced by the usefulness of innovation and the need to respond to the energy demand with clean energies. Indeed, he launched several new ventures in the field of sustainable development and innovation, and then developed wind turbine farms in France before starting the Ciel & Terre journey.

Back in 2006, the French company was specialized in developing rooftop solar projects. The team was composed of no more than 6 persons : 3 engineers, 2 project managers and designers, plus a sales representative. They developed a patented racking system to ease their installation, notably for large-size roofs. Behind this activity? The will to deploy renewable energy projects in the local environments while preserving land was already in the DNA of the company.

Is floating solar another smart way to produce green energy?

From 2010, Ciel & Terre started to change its strategy. The objective remained the same: build solar arrays with no impact on our precious lands. At that specific time a new idea came up: what if we built solar on water? That is how from roof solar the company mutated to floating solar.

After 2 years of development, Ciel & Terre became the pioneer of floating solar with the first floating solar concept., At that time it was completely disruptive system which opened a new branch in the solar energy industry. Plus, it enabled us to carry further our mission: we would continue to deploy renewable energy projects in local environments while preserving land. The integration concern really is part of our nature. We would simply do it differently. The water bodies we target are artificial reservoirs or anthropized environments. More precisely at that time we started with irrigation and quarry lakes.

The birth of floating solar: what happened in practice?

As for any transition, much (renewable!) energy is needed. In 2010, to rose to this challenge, we hired 2 full-time engineers and strengthened the commercial force. Based on several concepts, and prototypes located in Southern France, Alexis Gaveau, CEO of Ciel & Terre, originally engineer, and his team, designed the first version of Hydrelio® floating solar solution that is behind the success of Ciel & Terre today.

Back in images on a pilot in Southern France (2011). ⬇

The French story of Ciel & Terre rapidly became international. We implemented the first floating solar projects in Japan, where the history, the legal framework and the philosophy facilitated the early adoption of floating solar.

In 2013, barely 3 years after the conception of our first floating solar solution Hydrelio, we installed the first megawatt-scale floating solar plant in Japan. Considering the quick success and high potential of floating solar in the country, we decided to launch our first affiliate office there.

Led by Alexis, and now Stéphane and Daphnée, Products & Services directors, we all believe in innovation for the sake renewable energies serving sustainable development. Therefore, we continuously improve our floating solar technologies. Today, 40 R&D engineers work on various topics related to our floating solar solutions: floating system, anchoring, validation in order to provide ever reliable floating solar solutions. This is not to mention the dozens of other engineers dedicated to project designs, industry and logistics.

With the vision to make renewable energy more accessible to be more widely spread, we will continue to deploy renewable energy projects, with very much attention to their integration into their local environments.