The future of solar power in Europe is looking bright, according to a new report which compares the usage of renewable energy across European countries.
The report, which was recently published by Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe, found that solar energy is on the rise across the continent.
CAN Europe gave scores for EU member states based on solar uptake and government policy, among other key areas.
Almost all counties were given a higher score in the report for 2024 than 2022, with only Sweden, which has the highest renewable energy use in the EU, scoring less.
Meanwhile, reports by other organisations on solar PV panels Ireland and northern European countries found that this trend is Europe-wide, and not only confined to countries which experience more sunshine.
Incentives must be boosted
Despite the positive direction European countries are headed in, the CAN report did however say that the rate of progress must be accelerated.
It called for a clear solar standard for rooftop solar panels, and said that citizen focused incentives, i.e. grants for PV systems, must be maintained or boosted.
Romania, Greece and Bulgaria saw the most improvement across the seven areas taken into consideration, while Portugal and Spain saw no change in their scores over the past two years.
Overall, however, the report found that countries are serious about the adoption of solar energy, which bodes well for the future of the renewable energy source in the coming years as EU countries attempt to move further away from using fossil fuels to generate electricity for their citizens.
This is backed up by the fact that in Europe, rooftop solar increased by 54% in 2023 compared to 2022
The capacity of all rooftop solar grew from 24GW in 2022 to 37GW, with further increases expected this year and in the years ahead.
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