Since the escalation of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the European Union and the United States have imposed many rounds of sanctions on Russia, trying to get rid of energy dependence on the country. Solar, with short construction period and flexible application scenarios, has become the first choice for Europe to increase local energy. Supported by REPowerEU, the demand for solar in Europe has shown explosive growth.
According to the statistic of SolarPower Europe, the newly installed solar of the 27 EU countries has reached 41.4 GW in 2022, up 47% compared with 28.1 GW in 2021, which was more than twice that in 2020. The report believes that the EU solar market will continue to grow at a high speed in the next few years, with an optimistic estimation of new addition of 68 GW in 2023 and close to 119 GW in 2026.
The solar market performance in 2022 is far higher than expected, 38% (or 10 GW) higher than the our forecast a year ago, and 16% (or 5.5GW) higher than the optimistic scenario forecast made in December 2021, according to SolarPower Europe.
Germany remains the largest solar market in the EU, with 7.9 GW of newly installed capacity in 2022, followed by Spain (7.5 GW), Poland (4.9 GW), the Netherlands (4 GW) and France (2.7 GW). Portugal and Sweden are among the top 10 markets, replacing Hungary and Austria. Germany and Spain will also become the leaders of EU solar increment in the next four years, with 62.6 GW and 51.2 GW of installed capacity added respectively from 2023-2026.
The report emphasized that the cumulative solar installed capacity of EU countries in 2030 will far exceed the capacity target set by the European Commission’s REPowerEU plan in the year, regardless of the intermediate outlook or optimistic forecast.
Labor shortage is the main bottleneck faced by European solar industry in the second half of 2022. SolarPower Europe suggested that, in order to ensure the continuous and stable growth of market, it is necessary to significantly expand the number of installers, ensure stable supervision, strengthen the transmission network, simplify administrative approval and build a stable and reliable supply chain.
