There was a sharp growth during the last year in solar demand across multiple
markets in Europe after several years
of modest growth. Demand is concentrated within the top four markets of
Germany, Spain, Ukraine, and the Netherlands. At 13 GW of installations, they
are collectively representing almost 60% of the European PV market in 2019.
This rapid rate of utility-scale growth allowed ground-mount
installations to pass rooftop installations in 2019 for the first time in four
years. Utility-scale installations are expected to account for 43% of
total European installations in 2019, but distributed PV (both residential and
commercial) are remaining a large and growing market segment, as self-consumption becomes
increasingly important.
While utility-scale installations will grow strongly
in some of these booming European markets, challenges associated with large
solar deployment still exist. In some markets such as Spain, grid connection
issues can slow down solar installations. Other markets may decrease as they
change market drivers. One example of the latter is Ukraine, which is switching
from a feed-in tariff to a tender-driven market.
PV installations in Europe now reached a new benchmark, with
more than 19 markets expected to have an installed base above 1 GW by the end
of 2019 – compared to a decade ago, when only Germany, Italy and Spain had
reached that mark.
The global solar market is highly interconnected and
sensitive to big changes in demand, such as, for example, the decline of a large market like
China in 2019. The solar supply chain has now reached a scale where suppliers
will seek new growth opportunities instantly if key markets fail to show expected demand. The past year has been a clear example, as the failure of
China to reach the same heights as in 2018 lead to module and inverter
suppliers quickly expanded internationally and substantially lowered prices to get
into new markets.
