We can read some new EU Market Outlooks and they all show that despite the setbacks brought by COVID-19, the European solar market has grown by 11%, adding 18.7 GW of installations. This makes 2020 the second best year ever for solar in the EU, the year with the strongest growth since 2011.

The report shows that Germany is the largest solar market in 2020, adding 4.8 GW, followed by the Netherlands, which added 2.8 GW capacity. Spain, the market leader last year, added 2.6 GW, of which nearly 1.5 GW came from PPA-based systems, making it the largest market in the world for subsidized solar. Poland installed 2.2 GW in 2020, more than double its capacity compared to last year; France completes the Top 5 by adding 945 MW, with which it exceeded the threshold of 10 GW of total capacity.

The cumulative installed capacity of solar in the EU reached 137.2 GW in 2020, with 22 of the 27 EU Member States having installed more than the previous year. The Outlook expects to add 22.4 GW of solar power in 2021, 27.4 GW in 2022, 30.8 GW in 2023 and 35 GW in 2024, bringing total installed capacity to 252 GW.