With the EU targeting 425GW of solar by 2030 after some member countries submitted their revised National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) earlier this year, many solar companies in Europe are working on new projects or expanding their footprint in the continent to leverage the potential growth to benefit their business.
Some relatively small solar companies, including Stockholm-based Alight, have also set ambitious growth plans. Recently, it expanded to the Finnish market with plans to construct a new solar PV project with a capacity of more than 100MW.
Unlock unlimited access for 12 whole months of distinctive global analysis
Photovoltaics International is now included.
- Regular insight and analysis of the industry’s biggest developments
- In-depth interviews with the industry’s leading figures
- Unlimited digital access to the PV Tech Power journal catalogue
- Unlimited digital access to the Photovoltaics International journal catalogue
- Access to more than 1,000 technical papers
- Discounts on Solar Media’s portfolio of events, in-person and virtual
Or continue reading this article for free
Potential in Finland and Sweden
Warren Campbell, chief operating officer and deputy CEO of Alight, says the potential of the solar market in Scandinavia is massive.
“The potential of the solar market in Scandinavia is massive and largely untapped today. While winters tend to be dark, summers are very light and overall there is good solar irradiation,” he says.
Campbell adds that Alight mainly builds projects in the southern regions of Sweden and Finland. For example, the recently announced project will be located in Eurajoki, a municipality in Satakunta, a region in southern Finland, Alight will begin construction on the ground-mounted solar project in the fourth quarter of 2024 and plans to commission the project in Q1 2026.
The project will span 123 hectares and its expected annual electricity production will reach 107GWh. Alight claims that the project will be one of Finland’s largest solar parks under development.
According to Finland’s updated National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) published this year, Finland’s planned renewable energy share of final energy consumption will need to reach at least 51%.
The plan also states that Finland could reach an installed solar capacity of 2,800MW by 2030, more than fourfold the installed capacity at the end of 2022.
Meanwhile in Sweden, Alight also plans to build a 64MW solar farm in Hallstavik, which will be the solar facility with the largest capacity in the country upon its completion. Swedish retailer Axfood has signed a 12-year power purchase agreement (PPA) to buy power from the project. The facility will be operational in Q2 next year.
Sweden is also increasing its installed solar capacity. Sweden’s updated NECP anticipates solar capacity increasing by 5GW between 2021 to 2030. Sweden will rely more on wind power as the installed capacity of wind power will increase by 13GW between 2021 and 2030.
Challenges to expansion
Recently, multiple European cell and module manufacturers, start-ups and solar PV component suppliers have published an open letter via the European Solar Manufacturing Council (ESMC), urging the EU to take action to safeguard the European PV manufacturing industry threatened by “unsustainably low-priced PV modules” from Chinese module manufacturers.
PV Tech Premium also asks Campbell about the challenges faced by Alight at the moment. He comments: “The cost of solar cells during the COVID pandemic saw an uptick, breaking a ten-year trend of falling costs. Last year, the trend of falling costs resumed and since then the price for solar cells has gone from just over €0.30 per watt to €0.15 per watt. The solar panels make up more than half of the overall cost, so this has a huge impact on the cost of the entire project, both at Alight and across the industry as a whole.”
But Campbell adds that long wait times associated with grid connectivity and permitting processes slow the speed of project rollout, which “puts Europe at risk of not meeting its climate commitments”.
“We are constantly working with all these factors to move our projects forward,” he says.
Business plan of Alight
Currently, Alight has roughly 55 assets with a total capacity of 130MW under management or construction. Campbell says Alight’s pipeline of projects under various stages of development across Europe is close to 2GW, including several hundred megawatts that the company expects to start building in the next 12 months.
Earlier this year, Alight opened an office in Madrid to tap into the city’s mature talent pool to support its growth and development in Europe. The Madrid office complements the operations of its headquarters in Stockholm.
Speaking of the expansion, Alight’s CEO said the expansion to Madrid could help the company recruit and retain the top talent in the industry, in addition to bolstering its expansion in Europe.
After the expansion, Alight will explore the potential of developing projects in many European markets, including Spain, the UK, Italy and Poland.
Looking ahead, Campbell says Alight has been focusing on reaching its aim to have an installed capacity of at least 5GW across Europe by 2030 at the moment backed by power purchase agreements.
“We are focused on executing our current project pipeline and see a great opportunity to invest further in Finland,” Campbell says.