A challenging area of the energy transition.

As the climate is rapidly changing, humanity should start taking action on how to avoid further damage.

As a consequence the European Union has come with an initiative to increase the usage of low-carbon energy sources. According to the initiative, the EU member countries should reach a specific target for the incorporation of renewable energy sources by 2020.

However, the time for the EU countries to accomplish their goal is almost up. According to a recent Eurostat official update, less than half have reached the finish line so far. Some of the winning countries include: Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Croatia, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic.

Moreover, there are still a lot of EU member states that are far from the finishing line. For instance, France is the furthest away with 6.7% of its goal remaining, second comes Ireland which has 5.3% left, and third is the United Kingdom with 4.8% remaining.

The EU solar market is flourishing

Fortunately, the EU initiative is already giving some positive results. For example, in 2018 more than 11 gigawatts of solar power was added in Europe. Furthermore, the numbers show a 21% annual increase in solar installation on the continent. Hence, it is safe to say that the European solar market is on the rise. 

In addition, the maximum net generating solar capacity of the EU was estimated to be 171 gigawatts for 2018. On top of that, the EU demand for solar power rose by 37% with 22 member states adding more solar power to the grid when compared to the previous year. 

On the downside, most of the European countries so far have a solar capacity of less than 3,000 megawatts. In comparison, the three best performing countries showed capacity of more than 10 GW. On the top of the list comes Germany with 45.9 gigawatts of solar capacity, followed by Italy with 20.1 gigawatts and the United Kingdom with 13.1 gigawatts.

Three clouds above the UK’s solar future

The UK’s solar capacity might be the third highest in the EU, but the country still has a lot to catch up with its EU 2020 goal. According to governmenta data, the total renewables share of energy generation in the UK for 2018 was 33%, an increase of 3.8% when compared to 2017.

The country’s biggest renewable energy source in 2018 was that of onshore and offshore wind power, which combined had a share of 17.1%. It is followed by bioenergy with 10.4%, and then solar energy with 3.9%.

If we take a closer look at each renewable energy source individually, onshore wind power showed the smallest annual growth with only a 5.2% increase when compared to the previous year. Furthermore, the offshore wind power had the biggest annual increase among the rest of the renewables with 27.6%. Second comes solar energy with 14.6% and third, hydro power with 12%.

Most importantly, the UK’s solar capacity has increased from 5,488.6 megawatts to 13,259 megawatts since 2014. Part of it is due to the feed-in tariff initiative that resulted in 992,065 new solar panel installations for the period it was active. 

Unfortunately, the British government has introduced new changes in the legislation for PV systems. One of the most important is the increase of the VAT on photovoltaic installations from 5% to 20%, taking effect from 1st October, which could cause the UK solar market to stall.

On the bright side, the government also launched the Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) initiative, which will provide financial support to small low-carbon generators.

It is also expected that the UK solar market will increase with 2,711 MW up to 15,674 MW by 2023. Hence, there might be a chance for the UK to get back on track of reaching its target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. 

Written by Galabina Nedelcheva of GreenMatch