The Netherlands, Germany and Spain: Which European countries are leading the solar revolution?

 The Netherlands, Germany and Spain: Which European countries are leading the solar revolution?

Switzerland's largest alpine solar plant is attached to a hydro dam 2500 metres above sea level.   -   Copyright  Axpo

By Lottie Limb  •  Updated: 09/11/2022 - 13:50

Travelling around Europe on a clear day, you’re increasingly likely to spy a sheet of solar panels glinting in the sun.

It’s a positive sign to most, if a recent survey showing that renewable energy is EU citizens’ favoured way out of the climate crisis is anything to go by.

But some politicians are still finding ways to cast solar fields in a bad light, within a wider trend of climate action being politicised. While still competing with Liz Truss to become UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak vowed that he would not see “swathes of our best farmland [lost] to solar farms.”

This is despite ground-mounted solar panels currently covering just 0.1 per cent of all land in the UK, well behind that dedicated to golf courses.

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The full picture is much more varied. More and more solar panels are cropping up by roadsides, on reservoirs, and the disused land beside train tracks, as the Europe's energy landscape - and so its physical landscape - changes for the better.

As it must: by 2035, solar needs to grow ninefold to put the continent on a pathway compatible with 1.5C warming, according to clean energy think tank Ember.

We spoke to experts about which countries are leading the way, and what is needed for solar to play its part in the green energy transition.

Which European countries are doing the best on solar?

Utrecht Robin/ABACA/REUTERS

A solar park in the Netherlands, which has seen a rapid expansion in its solar capacity.Utrecht Robin/ABACA/REUTERS

There’s a number of different metrics by which you can judge a country’s solar success.

Looking at the percentage of electricity generated by solar in the energy mix, the Netherlands, Germany and Spain come out on top, with 23 per cent, 19 per cent and 17 per cent respectively during summer 2022.

Greece is typically a top performer here too, recently celebrating generating 100 per cent of its electricity from renewables for the first time (albeit for only five hours).

The countries where solar is rapidly taking off tend to be smaller and concentrated in Eastern Europe. Poland has increased its solar generation since 2018 by a whopping 26 times, with Finland and Hungary also rolling the renewable out at pace.

Surprisingly, the leaderboard doesn't match up to which countries are the sunniest. Political backing and cultivating the right economic climate for solar is more important than ‘irradiance’ levels.

Even in the middle of Sweden, solar still makes sense.

“Photovoltaics [PV] is a technology which is applicable up to the southern half of Sweden,” explains Jonathan Bonadio, senior policy advisor at SolarPower Europe “Even in the middle of Sweden, it still makes sense, with the decrease of the cost of PV panels, and the overall cost reduction.”

It’s hard to compare like for like, however, with countries of such varied shapes and sizes. Luxembourg actually has the highest percentage of solar, notes Ember analyst Harriet Fox. But with less than 65,000 inhabitants it’s something of an anomaly.

Germany, the largest economy in Europe, has the highest solar capacity target in the EU (215GW) - aiming for an 80 per cent renewable share by 2030. Other countries including Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands are aiming for 100 per cent renewables by the end of the decade. 

Bigger countries also have the best auction results, with Germany, Spain and the Netherlands auctioning the largest quantities of renewables.

SolarPower Europe, a member-led association for the continent’s solar PV sector, adds that ‘gigawatt countries’ are the real contenders. These are the nations that have installed at least one gigawatt of solar - equivalent to a nuclear reactor, and capable of powering around 300,000 homes.

Denmark is also on this list, and it’s hoped that Norway, Italy, Sweden and Belgium will qualify soon.

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CORSICA SOLE

The Picarreau Solar Farm built by Corisca Sole in France is an example of a project taking care to protect the local flors and fauna.CORSICA SOLE

“Solar is such an easy way to fix the energy crisis or reduce it,” Fox tells Euronews Green. “Especially for next winter - which people are already saying is going to be even more testing than this one, because we'll probably have run through our gas reserves.

“You could easily get a solar park up and running in a year, if you have the political and social and environmental acceptance.”

In the UK, Tory politicians were recently considering a backwards step: widening the scope of ‘best and most versatile’ land - earmarked for farming - to include lower grade land where most solar farms are built on and planned for.

The designation of land, whether for agricultural or industrial use, is usually a member state matter on the continent. REPower EU, the bloc’s plan for weaning itself off Russian fossil fuels, requires countries to identify ‘go-to’ areas where renewable projects can be launched with quicker permitting processes.

SolarPower EU prefers the term ‘priority’ areas (which doesn’t carry the same association of ‘no go’ zones). But the message is clear; “the lower hanging fruits currently lie on degraded areas or places of low biodiversity that were under intensive agriculture, or parking areas,” says Bonadio.

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