Shine On Policycast
Shine On Policycast is a podcast presented by SolarPower Europe. In these episodes, we bring you EU policy updates relevant to solar, in under 20 minutes.
Our host, Bethany Meban, Head of Press and Policy Communications at SolarPower Europe, interviews different voices from our team of policy and market intelligence experts. As we enter a new political era in the EU, each episode dives into how solar is delivering on Europe's competitiveness, security and climate goals. The podcast is produced by Lily Murdoch, Digital Communications Advisor at SolarPower Europe.
Who are we? SolarPower Europe is the award-winning link between policymakers and the solar PV value chain. We represent over 320 companies and organisations from the solar value chain, and our mission is to ensure solar becomes Europe’s leading energy source by 2030.
Shine On Policycast
BONUS EPISODE: 5 numbers in 5 minutes | EU Market Outlook for Solar Power 2024-2028
Catch up on the latest EU solar market figures with this bonus episode of Shine On Policycast. In just 5 minutes, Christophe Lits, Senior Market Analyst at SolarPower Europe, shares five key numbers from our recently published EU Market Outlook for Solar Power. While the report highlights record numbers of solar installed, Christophe explains why the news might not be so bright for the future of solar in Europe.
Welcome to this bonus episode of Shine On Policycast, where we share five numbers in five minutes or less to update you about the solar market in Europe. I'm Bethany, and today I'm joined by Christophe Lits, one of our market analysts here at SolarPower Europe. So, hi Christophe. Hello, Bethany. So just in December, we launched our annual EU Solar Market Outlook for 2024 all the way through to 2028. Christophe, you're here today to talk us through some of those numbers. I have a lovely yellow hour glass and I'm going to flip it to start the timer for five minutes, and then you got to give us five numbers, so off you go. Thank you for the invitation to the podcast. But, I think the first key number is how much have we installed actually last year in 2024? 66 GW of solar PV was installed in the EU in 2024. So what does that mean, 66 GW? So to represent it more visually, it can generate the electricity consumption of roughly 20 million houses in the EU. So of course, it's not a one to one relationship. But that's globally the amount that can generate electricity that's consumed by 20 million houses. And what does 66 GW mean compared to the previous year? So is it a good year or bad year? Technically, it's the all-time record. So technically, it's good news. So last year was 60 GW. But if we look a bit at the broader spectrum, it's actually not so great, not that great at all. If you look a couple of years ago, we were at 30 GW, then we jumped to 40, then to 60, and then to 66. The margin by how much we grew last year is really minus. So it's just 2 GW extra and just 4% growth from one year to another. So it's the all-time record but we see really a slowdown in the market expansion on a year to year basis. That actually reflects my second number. It's actually minus 13% in annual investment towards solar PV throughout the year. That reflection is actually quite important because we know that is the first time we have decoupling between the amount of PV we installed and the investment which are actually going down. It's a bit worrying because if we are thinking back a couple of months, towards the end of 2023 or mid-2023, compared to 2024, the price of PV systems and solar panels in general has dropped by by a factor of two. It's much cheaper to buy now. That could explain why we spend less. But at the same time, with the solar module being much cheaper, we should have been able to invest much more into that and actually deploy more. That's been the first time we see decoupling investment that's going to our PV, and that is quite worrying for the future in general. I'm seeing you look at the time, so I'm looking at the time! You look at your time! That's the first number where it means 66 GW, an all-time record, but not that much growth, which is reflected into the 13% investment decrease in actually, investment towards solar PV in the EU. That's the scene for how 2024 looked like. If you go a bit more in detail about what kind of installation we had during the year, that's my third number. So that's 42%, of the annual installation. So the new PV that was deployed during 2024, were utility-scale PV. So ground mounted PV and farm on the ground compared to rooftop PV that we also have. This difference is actually explained by a couple of points. Mainly the electricity price is roughly over, especially during 2024. We didn't have the high prices as we knew during the crisis. The household didn't have the needs or didn't face the same desire to protect themselves for those high electricity prices. In general, the households and rooftop market has decreased quite a lot. At the same time, because the price of panels and solar modules were cheaper, it was more interesting for developers to buy and to construct projects because it was cheaper. Overall, we had a bit of a shift towards more utility scale compared to rooftop, compared to the previous year, what we had. Still pretty important to remember that, that 42% is an average throughout the EU, and each market is very different from each other. We have markets such as Spain, for example, when utility scale and ground mounted PV are much larger than the rooftop, and then some markets, we have exactly the opposite. I'm looking at the time still! It's getting a bit tight! That's the 2024 situation. Now, if we're looking a bit more in the future, so what we're expecting. We had 66 GW installed in 2024. We're expecting the market to go to about 82 gigawatts in 2028. Compared to a previous forecast, it's a bit of a lowering of our numbers. We're expecting roughly between 3% to 7% growth every year until 2028. That's quite a difference compared to the 40 to 50% growth we experienced in the past three, four years. The main reason for that decrease, actually, a lot of challenges that we had are still present. We have a lack of flexibility. That means storage capacity, grid infrastructure, demand response, all those mechanisms are actually missing quite a lot, and we're seeing those becoming more urgent issues. Permitting remains pretty slow, I'm coming to an end! Permitting is getting pretty slow, we still have some issues. We're almost at five! I'll accelerate now! We have a bit of issue with the electrification of the EU in general, it's a bit too slow. The mobility, the heavy industry are not electrified fast enough. Those general issues lowered the pace of deployment for PV. Then my last number, which actually goes pretty quick, how much do we expect to have in total by 2030? We're expecting 818 GW. That's a bit lower compared to the 900 GW we were expecting last year, by 2030. We're still above the target of RePowerEU, but those challenges are becoming bigger and bigger. Now this year, actually, our low scenario is missing the target of RePowerEU by about 100 GW. RePower EU is aiming for 750 GW. Our low scenario is going to 650 GW, and the medium scenario is 820 GW roughly. We're still on track to meet RePowerEU, but it's really not something to consider achieved. We can't take it for granted. No, exactly. The more we progress in time, the bigger those challenges are getting and the lower our forecast is getting also. That's it. 2024 was a good year, a bit disappointing in terms of growth, and it shows some concerning development for the future. That's 2030. So we saw, just to recap, we saw 66 GW of new solar in 2024 in the EU, which is only slightly greater than what we installed in 2023. We saw minus 13% in solar investments. So, actually the first time we saw a decline in how much people were investing in solar. About 42% of new PV installed in 2024 was ground mounted, so different from rooftop. We're expecting 82 GW in 2028. And by 2030, we're expecting 818 GW by 2030. But for the first time, our low scenario actually takes us off course. And now we're talking about the real possibility that we might not meet our targets. So thanks Christophe, for sharing those important numbers. And if you went over time, I think it's well justified because the numbers are important and tell a crucial story. So you can find all these numbers and more in our EU Market Outlook, which is on our website, that's SolarPowerEurope.org and thanks, Christoff, for your insights today. Thank you. You're welcome.