According to Solar Power Europe's latest European PV Market Outlook 2021-2025, 2021 was the best year in European PV history, with 25.9 GW of new PV installed for the year!
This new EU record represents a 34% increase on the 19.3 GW installed in 2020 and breaks the EU PV installation record of 21.4 GW set a decade ago (2011).
The EU PV market report has a more optimistic forecast for PV installations beyond 2021. According to the report
European solar will continue to grow strongly, with cumulative capacity expected to reach 327.6 GW by 2025 and 672 GW by 2030.
This means that the amount of solar power installed in the EU will double in four years, with the total amount of PV installed in the EU now standing at 164.9 GW, which means that an average of 41 GW of new solar power will be installed each year over the next four years.
SolarPower Europe believes that the most likely figure to be reached is an additional 30GW in 2022 and a further 7GW per year thereafter, i.e. 37GW in 2023, 44GW in 2024 and 51GW in 2025.
On a national/regional level, two new member states at GW level will be added in 2021, increasing the EU PV GW club to seven, which is expected to grow to 12 by 2025.
Germany continues to lead the way in terms of total installed capacity, with 5.3 GW expected to be installed by the end of 2021, an 8% increase on 2020. According to Global PV's forecast for the top seven global markets in 2022, Germany is expected to add close to 10 GW of new installations next year, and the new German government coalition has set new renewable energy targets in its future plans, with the new government coalition deciding to increase Germany's solar installation target for 2030 from 100 GW to 200 GW.
Surprisingly, the Netherlands has already surpassed Germany in terms of installed capacity per capita, having reached 765 W /capita, an increase of 42% compared to 2020.
According to a new report by SolarPower Europe, a review of the progress of the EU member states' National Energy and Climate Plans (NECP) found that all EU member states are on track to meet their national solar targets by 2030 or earlier, with Estonia and Latvia already meeting their 2030 solar targets this year, and Poland, Ireland and Sweden by 2022.