The European Union (EU) solar market installed a record-high 65.5 GW of new solar PV capacity in 2024, but it makes the 1st deployment slowdown of the 2020s, according to SolarPower Europe (SPE). This represents a 4.4% year-on-year (YoY) growth after the bloc recorded over 40% growth every year, including 53% growth in 2023, representing a 92% growth slowdown. It is the lowest market growth for the EU since 2017.
The 2024 EU solar installations were led by the rooftop solar segment with 38 GW capacity and 27.5 GW of utility-scale solar. With this, the cumulative installed capacity of the bloc has now reached 338 GW, according to SPE’s flagship report EU Market Outlook for Solar Power 2024-2028.
Germany led the installations with 16.1 GW, followed by Spain’s 9.3 GW, Italy’s 6.4 GW, France’s 4.7 GW, and Poland’s 4.2 GW as the top 5 markets in 2024. On a cumulative basis, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, and France led the list.
The slower growth rate was in a year when module prices have fallen significantly, and lower upfront costs for solar installations. Ground-mounted solar PV projects also registered an average cost decline of 28% this year.
Annual investments in solar PV installations declined for the 1st time since 2020. (Photo Credit: SolarPower Europe)
It was also the year, the report points out, when annual investments in solar declined for the 1st time in the 2020s to €55 billion this year, down from €63 billion in 2023. The writers attribute this to falling component prices that lowered capital expenditure.
Reflecting on the reasons for this decline, SPE listed less pressure on monthly energy bills for rooftop solar households due to the resolution to the gas prices, hence the dwindling interest in solar panel investments. Analysts see utility-scale solar growing quicker than rooftop in the 2nd half of the decade.
In 2028, rooftop solar is likely to grow by 44.2 GW, while utility-scale will jump up by 37.3 GW, reaching a cumulative 379 GW and 258 GW, respectively.
The lack of electrification in Europe is also one of the reasons for the market slowdown. A major part of the energy system here continues to run on fossil fuels and combustion. The Electrification Alliance wants the region to speed it up from 23% since the last 5 years to 35% by 2030. The report also calls for a focus on system flexibility as that holds the potential to slash day-ahead energy prices by 25% by 2030 and 33% by 2040, boosting the solar business case by 71%. This would require EU battery storage capacity to expand 16-fold from 48 GWh now to 780 GWh in 2030.
SPE CEO Walburga Hemetsberger said the bloc needs to install around 70 GW annually to achieve the 2030 REPowerEU target of 750 GW DC/600 GW AC capacity. Under the report’s medium scenario projections, the EU can reach 816 GW by 2030, exceeding the official target by 9%, which itself is an 8% or 74 GW reduction in SPE’s previous forecast of the bloc reaching a cumulative 890 GW by the end of this decade.
（Picture: Veer）
