“The UK market has matured, technologies have matured and one of the biggest risks at the moment is around execution and just the capacity in the market to build,” Guy Lavarack, chief investment officer at the Luminous Energy Group, tells PV Tech Premium.
His comments come as part of a wider discussion about risk assessment and mitigation in the European solar sector, and follow years of activity in the UK solar space for the company. Luminous Energy developed and sold the 9.2MW Paddock Wood solar farm in 2015, and Lavarack notes that the maturation of the UK market and resulting increase in average project size has amplified existing types of risk, such as interface and grid risk.
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“Within execution, it has always been there but managing interface risk [and] managing the grid are key risks in project delivery that, as projects have gotten bigger, and the scales and numbers have climbed accordingly, there’s more of an imperative to manage accordingly, particularly around grid, and capacity of distribution network operators (DNOs) to execute,” he explains.
Lavarack goes on to note that these risks are not unique to the UK, pointing to a loss of “talent that is not easily replaced” across Europe among DNOs following the Covid-19 pandemic.
Many of these risks are furthered by the increasing appetite for the co-location of battery energy storage systems (BESS) and renewable energy generation projects in Europe; figures from Wood Mackenzie suggest that European battery storage deployment is expected to grow 45% year-on-year by the end of 2025. While battery installations are an effective means of limiting the variance in renewable power generation, and helping renewable projects provide electricity in a manner closer to baseload generation, the addition of a separate technology increases complexity and capex for project developers.
Lavarack will be speaking on the first day of the 13th edition of the Solar Finance & Investment Europe event in London on 3 – 4 February 2026, hosted by PV Tech publisher Solar Media. This event annually attracts infrastructure funds, institutional investors, asset managers, banks and development platforms at the forefront of European renewables. For more details, visit the website.
