Two-thirds of the EU’s installed 209 GW solar capacity is still on roof-tops with the commercial roof-top segment growing fastest ahead of utility-scale ground-mounted projects. The EU’s Solar Energy Strategy aims to bring over 320 GW of solar photovoltaic online by 2025 and almost 600 GW by 2030! Solar generation rose by a record 39 TWh (+24%) in 2022, helping to avoid €10 billion in gas costs. This was due to record installations of 41 GW in 2022, 47% more than was added in 2021. Twenty EU countries achieved their highest-ever share of solar electricity. The Netherlands was the leader, producing 14% of its power from solar — overtaking coal generation for the first time. Greece ran solely on renewables for five hours in October and is expected to reach its 2030 solar capacity target of 8 GW by the end of 2023, seven years early. For the first time, wind and solar reached over a fifth (22%) of EU electricity in 2022. Global predictions for solar installations this year are for 350,6GWp of PV installation and SolarPower Europe predicts global solar to more than double to 2.3 TW in 2025.
