
After several record years of new capacity additions, Europe’s solar market looks set for a cool-off period as the urgency spurred by the 2022 energy crisis abates. Jonathan Touriño Jacobo reports on the barriers now facing European solar, from changing political winds to lagging grid modernisation efforts.
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Looking at the numbers from 2023, it would be hard not to conclude that European solar has never been in better shape. Last year marked another year of record for solar PV in installed capacity, with 55.9GW across the 27 Member States, a 40% growth from the previous year, according to trade association SolarPower Europe’s report, “EU Market Outlook for Solar Power 2023-2027”. This is the third year in a row with growth of 40% or above for the region.
And yet 2024 has started on a much more worrisome note, especially for the European solar manufacturing industry, which saw Swiss manufacturer Meyer Burger close a module plant in Germany and Solarwatt announcing plans to shut its 300MW production plant in the coming months. In terms of capacity growth for solar PV in 2024, SolarPower Europe also expects much slower growth than in previous years as the urgency to deploy renewables during the energy crisis fades.
Dries Acke, deputy CEO at SolarPower Europe, says the double-digit growth of added PV might even end this year, with still a record year in 2024 but at a much slower pace. “We don’t project more than a 10% increase. And actually, the latest numbers are saying that it may be slightly below the 10% [mark]. This will be the first time that the market grows only with single-digit numbers, or at least that is what we are foreseeing.”
Acke says that one reason for that slower pace is a lack of political signal and a sense of urgency that is no longer present. The added capacity record years in the past two to three years were closely linked to the energy crisis in Europe, which stimulated the growth of renewables.
On top of that, interest rates continue to remain at a high level, coupled with electricity prices reverting to levels seen before Ukraine’s invasion. “The combination of the two is, of course, problematic as it squeezes the business case for solar investors,” explains Acke.
Before looking in closer detail at some of the specific topics shaping Europe’s solar sector and the trends at play in the continent’s four sub-regions, this article will explore the bigger picture for Europe, including some of the achievements made more recently (capacity and policy-wise), and what awaits solar PV in 2024 and in the coming years.
14 EU markets added over 1GW in 2023
Once again, solar PV had a record year in 2023 with 56GW of grid capacity installed – the third year in a row with a more than 40% increase from the previous year. The total installed capacity for solar PV across the European Union (EU) reached 263GW at the end of 2023, more than a third of the way towards the EU’s 740GWdc solar PV target by 2030.
In its market outlook report for 2023, SolarPower Europe highlighted that 20 of the 27 member states had their best year in 2023, while 25 installed more capacity in 2023 than they did in 2022. As solar continued to accelerate its growth, 14 markets managed to add over 1GW of capacity last year, four more than in 2022.
Dethroned by Spain in 2022, Germany regained the first position last year with 14.1GW of solar PV added. “Germany is again number one, and it’s really a consequence of good ambition and good planning. Their auction system is working, and their scheduling is working,” says Acke.
If Germany continues to light the way for solar PV across European countries, others are also making progress. Acke highlights several countries in Central and Eastern Europe, such as Bulgaria, Romania and Lithuania, where solar PV penetration is increasing. Both Bulgaria and Romania reached a gigawatt-plus of new additions in a single year in 2023, a first for Bulgaria and, in Romania’s case, the first time for over a decade. The shift towards renewable energy in some of these countries was made as a reaction to the energy security plans which are intricately connected to gas, explains Acke, adding: “The mentality of the energy security crisis has been shifting in favour of renewables with some auctions and some support schemes being put in place.”
Once a leader in solar PV at the beginning of the 2010s, Italy seems to have made a comeback with more than 5GW of installed capacity in 2023, more than doubling the already improved numbers in 2022 and after nearly a decade of installing less than 1GW of capacity.
The distributed generation market carried the growth in the country with residential solar still boosted by the “110% Superbonus” scheme in the first half of the year before ending in February 2023. With that scheme ending, the commercial and industrial (C&I) solar carried the rest of the weight, and with more installers available to install more C&I projects, according to Paolo Viscontini, president of trade association Italia Solare.
Solar PV is no longer just about Germany or Spain
Last year also marked the second time EU governments had to submit their national energy and climate plans (NECPs), which were adopted in 2019. These national plans outline how each member state intends to address several dimensions of the energy union goals, including energy efficiency, energy security and an internal energy market. Each country needs to supply targets for various technologies—solar PV included—by 2030 and beyond.
All but Austria have submitted their updated draft and only the Netherlands reduced its target for 2030 from 27GW to 25.7GW.
“Solar ambition [has increased] by 87%, which is almost a doubling [of the previous target]. And close to 600GW by 2030, which is close to our 700GW ambition,” says Acke.
In terms of absolute numbers, Germany (215GW), Italy (80GW) and Spain (76GW) lead the way for solar PV’s installed capacity but are no longer the only countries where PV will play an important role.
“It’s proliferating across Europe, and it’s not just the story of Germany, Spain or Italy anymore,” explains Acke, adding that countries such as Lithuania (5.1GW), Ireland (8GW) or Poland (29.3GW) have multiplied their targets by a factor of five, 10 or three, respectively.
205GW of solar PV held up by grids
However, these increased targets for solar PV and other renewables across member states could yet be thwarted by what is emerging as a major stumbling block for Europe’s energy plans – namely its grid infrastructure.
In March 2024, think tank Ember published a report looking at the transmission networks across Europe and their development plans over the coming years. Out of 23 countries it analysed, 19 had underestimated the deployment of solar PV by 205GW by 2030.
For Gaëtan Masson, founder and CEO of Becquerel Institute, the grid discussion should be handled at different levels, including transmission system operators (TSOs), distribution system operators (DSOs), and even cross-border interconnection.
“It’s clear that not all DSOs are able to manage high shares of decentralised PV. And very often, it’s coming from the fact that they are too small in size. If you’re taking Germany, where you have 900 DSOs, and you compare with France, where we have one,” explains Masson.
Considering how long building new transmission lines and expanding the grid takes, investing in it is of the essence in order to avoid a slowdown of renewables in the coming years and also to avoid increased curtailment issues. “There is a big topic linked to investments in the grid,” says Naomi Chevillard, head of regulatory affairs at SolarPower Europe.
“There’s a big priority for the modernisation and digitalisation of networks. What we mean by that is being able to operate the grid closer to real-time capacities by having sensors on the cables to understand what are the real-time limits,” adds Chevillard.
Flexibility to combat price cannibalisation
One ongoing trend that has slowly increased in importance since the beginning of the year has been the electricity price decrease in many European countries, particularly Portugal and Spain. But in general, the price decrease has affected most of the continent, and if it continues, it will increasingly become an issue for solar developers.
“It’s one of the priorities for the solar sector and the renewable sector in general for the next year,” says Acke, adding that what is currently happening in Spain will eventually happen to all of Europe and should be looked at closely. “It’s a good wake-up call to really work on flexibility resolution. And it’s both on transmission and distribution levels.”
Both Chevillard and Acke highlight the importance of flexibility to help with grid congestion. With 27 member states, cross-border transmission lines could play an important role in delivering that flexibility. “It has the possibility of importing electricity from another country if there is a need,” explains Chevillard. Similarly, Acke calls for a “flexibility revolution”.
EU policies ahead of the election
At the time of writing, the European Union has either made progress or adopted several key policies in 2024 on the road towards the European Parliament’s upcoming election. The latest ones are the Net Zero Industry Act (NZIA) and the Solar Charter. “The progress has been immense and very important for the solar sector,” says Acke.

Going back to the beginning of this feature and the dire situation of the European solar manufacturing industry, the NZIA aims to back domestic production of clean energy with a 40% target of its annual deployment by 2030.
Not only has the EU set a target for domestic production by 2030, but it has also implemented rules to be applied in public procurement tenders where 30% of all tenders above 10MW would be required to meet these criteria in each member state. The next step for the NZIA is to be formally adopted by the European Council to become law which should be completed by June 2024.
“It’s not going to help existing companies right now, because it will take some months to be put in place. But we can imagine that at the beginning of 2025 we will have in a certain number of countries already measures allowing to have a market for European manufacturers,” says Masson.
The Solar Charter works in tandem with the NZIA, as its goal is to “commit” signing member states – all but Sweden, Ireland, Cyprus and Malta – to do all that is in their power, and using the tools provided in the Net Zero Industry Act, to make it happen, says Masson: “Some European countries will use it extremely fast and they’ve already announced that they will use it, France and Italy, for instance.”
Another piece of legislation Acke says could have a big impact on solar PV’s deployment is the EU’s Energy Performance Buildings Directive (EPBD), which sets a rooftop solar mandate on new and renovated buildings. “We are talking about a ballpark figure, for Article Nine in the Buildings Directive, which has the potential to have up to 200-250 gigawatts on rooftops alone by 2030,” explains Acke.
Progress in permitting
One recurring issue for solar developers relates to project permitting and, depending on the country, how intricate this process can be. Although it is a case-by-case situation, Chevillard says improvements have been made in the past years.
“Overall, we’ve seen things improve in the last few years, [helped by] the commission publishing an emergency regulation on permitting,” says Chevillard, referencing a regulation implemented in 2022 as a response to Russia’s war against Ukraine and which EU energy ministers extended last year until the end of June 2025. The faster permitting process implemented in that emergency regulation ended up being included in last year’s Renewables Energy Directive.
The new regulation set a two-year limit for projects to get greenlit, or one year for projects located in designated “renewables acceleration areas”, also called “go-to areas” set by each EU member state.
Chevillard adds having permitting and emergency written next to each other made countries more conscious of accelerating the permitting process to deploy renewables faster. Even though the issue of permitting might be more on a national scale, the EU’s involvement helps give investors a minimum legal certainty on how long a project will take before construction begins.
“Investors, when they invest in a country, look at Europe as a whole. The same thing as when they look at India, the US and Canada. They need to know more or less how much time permitting will take. That’s where the EU is super powerful because they say permitting should take two years and one year under certain conditions,” explains Chevillard.
Masson believes that the permitting issue is first a political question. Regarding the cost associated with permitting, Masson gives the examples of France and Germany’s tenders, which are priced differently despite similar cost of capital. “On one side, we went recently to around €45 to €50/MWh in Germany, and in France, we are more in the range of €75 to €80/MWh – even more,” explains Masson, adding that the difference is mostly about grid cost.
“The choice, which has been made in France and no one recognises it, is that the developers should bear the cost. Hence, PV remains extremely uncompetitive compared to Germany, and it’s not by accident.”
Masson adds that the cost of grid connection should be reduced in countries with lower PV penetration.
The EU Parliament election
Despite a stellar year for solar PV in 2023 and many policies passed in the past 12 months, the accelerated pace of renewables seems to be slowing down. As mentioned by Dries Acke, with the sense of political urgency no longer present, solar’s growth will not be as fast as in previous years.
How the EU Parliament election will impact the solar industry in the coming years is also yet to be determined. But the recent decision of the Italian government – which banned solar installations on agricultural land – could be an indication of what to expect if an increase in far-right parliament members end up elected in Strasbourg.
As Masson points out: “There is a politicisation of PV and renewables, which is becoming obvious now. What we see in many European countries from a political point of view is a radicalisation of the far-right, which is taking anti-climatic stances.”