QualiPV: why the electrical and building modules are not enough on their own

In photovoltaics, qualification is not a single block. QualiPV, the solar-electricity qualification of the body Qualit’EnR, splits into modules answering two different trades: mounting on a roof without making it leak, and connecting generation to the grid without endangering the installation. Many firms discover this architecture after selling their first project. Better to understand it beforehand.

Two strands, two trades

The electrical strand covers grid connection of a photovoltaic installation. It is tiered by power rating: a first level up to 36 kVA, matching the residential and small commercial market, then a higher level up to 500 kVA for larger installations. The level you hold must cover the power of the projects you actually carry out — qualifying at the first level and selling beyond it means stepping outside your certificate’s perimeter.

The building strand covers the workmanship: mechanical fixing of the modules and roof weatherproofing. This is the roofer’s trade, and it determines the life of the building fabric far more than panel yield does.

The structural point: the building strand is not self-sufficient. To run a photovoltaic project end to end, a firm needs the matching electrical strand. The practical consequence hits two very common profiles:

• The roofing company wanting to “do solar” cannot stop at the roof module. Either it extends its qualification on the electrical side, or it works jointly with a qualified electrician — and says so clearly in the quote.
• The electrician who qualifies on the electrical strand alone is exposed on weatherproofing, which is also where the costliest claims arise.

What the body checks

The criteria derive from the French order of 1 December 2015 on the qualification criteria required to benefit from energy-renovation subsidies, amended since. For photovoltaics, two points call for particular care.

Consistency of activity. The company’s field of activity must match the work applied for: electrical installation, roofing work, or energy-system installation depending on the module requested. A company whose declared activity bears no relation to those trades does not qualify on the grounds that it has hired a fitter.

Insurance. It must explicitly name photovoltaic system installation — professional public liability, and the French ten-year structural warranty (garantie décennale) for work that falls under it, which is the case as soon as a roof is penetrated. This is the leading cause of blocked files and the easiest to settle upfront: ask your insurer for a certificate that names the technology, not a generic one.

To that are added the blocks common to every qualification in the catalogue: a trained technical referent (référent technique) whose competence is verified over time, recent documented project references, and the company’s administrative and social-security compliance.

Why such demands on a “simple” technology

Photovoltaics has a reputation for being easy: modules, rails, an inverter. That reputation is precisely the problem — it attracts poorly equipped players onto a market where the customer can verify nothing.

The economic mechanism is well known. Aidan Coville, Joshua Graff Zivin, Arndt Reichert and Ann-Kristin Reitmann, in a randomised field experiment published in 2025 in the Journal of Development Economics (“Quality signaling and demand for renewable energy technology: Evidence from a randomized field experiment”), measure the effect of different quality signals on demand for solar equipment: third-party certification and a warranty significantly raise willingness to pay, while a simple money-back promise has no effect (see the study). Translated for a French installer: what reassures a customer unable to assess your work is not your sales pitch, it is an independent third party’s guarantee — and qualification is one of those.

The same authors note a less comfortable side effect: effective quality signals also stimulate demand for lower-quality products, by legitimising the whole product class among the least informed consumers. That is one more argument for site controls — an unverified signal would lose its value for everyone.

The cycle: four years and a site audit

Like the rest of the catalogue, QualiPV sits within a four-year cycle, with a validity certificate reissued each year once documents are checked, and a site audit within the first twenty-four months. The qualifications treated as critical — Qualibois and QualiPAC — additionally undergo a second audit in year three; photovoltaics does not fall into that reinforced category, which obviously does not excuse letting projects slide.

What an auditor looks at on a photovoltaic installation spans both trades: fixing and weatherproofing on the building side; protection ratings, cable routing and sizing, earthing and labelling on the electrical side. Our article on preparing for site audits sets out the method.

A realistic timetable

Between the decision and the certificate, count at minimum: finding an available course session for the technical referent, attending it, passing the assessment, gathering the documents, filing a complete application — completeness, not filing, starts the clock. Qualit’EnR states a processing time capped at six months from a complete file; most delays experienced as abnormal come from back-and-forth over missing documents.

If you are targeting both the electrical and the building strands, plan for two training routes. And if you are unsure which body to approach given your main trade, our comparison of Qualibat, Qualifelec or Qualit’EnR sets out the criteria.

One planning point deserves attention in photovoltaics specifically: a solar project is rarely sold alone. It usually arrives bundled with battery storage, a charging point or an energy-management system — each of which may sit in a different qualification perimeter. Recharge Elec+, the catalogue’s charging-point qualification, is a case in point, and the regulatory requirement to hold a qualification issued by an authorised body for charging points rated above 3.7 kW applies regardless of what else is on the roof. Map what you actually intend to sell as a package before choosing your modules, rather than adding a qualification mid-cycle because a customer asked for one extra item.

A second point concerns subcontracting. Where a roofer and an electrician split a photovoltaic project, the quote must make the split legible to the customer, and each firm must stay within its own qualification perimeter. Selling a complete installation under your own name while the qualified work is done by someone else is precisely the configuration the scheme’s controls target — consistency between what is sold, invoiced and actually carried out is a standing point of attention.

Take action

Settle one question first: do you want to run the photovoltaic project end to end, or handle a single package? The answer determines which QualiPV modules to apply for, and therefore your training calendar. Then check that your insurance certificate explicitly names photovoltaic system installation — without it, no file moves. The detail of qualifications, criteria and the audit cycle is on our Qualit’EnR page.