Page 44 - A Comprehensive Guide to Solar Energy Systems

Chapter 3 • Solar Power in Europe: Status and Outlook 39

started with 6 MW in 2014 and has been expanded to 51 MW in April 2017. By the end of
September 2016, the Turkish authorities had received applications for an amount of 7 GW
solar PV power of unlicensed projects; of this a total of 4.1 GW has been approved.
The solar additions for France were the most surprising disappointment in 2016. The
country added only 559 MW, down 38% from 895 MW the year before. This strong drop
should be considered as an exception. The market will pick up in 2017 as last June the gov-
ernment announced a detailed agenda to augment total installed solar capacity to around
20 GW by 2023 through regular tenders for building integrated PV (BIPV), rooftop PV and
ground-mounted solar power plants. At the end of 2016, the cumulative PV capacity in
France was 7.1 GW. Moreover, in early 2017, the French parliament passed a law that will
facilitate investment in self-consumption systems, which had been hindered by levies and
complicated regulatory frameworks. The first set of solar tenders have already been issued
and awarded.
Apart from Turkey, there were other positive solar developments in Europe, though only
the netherlands installed a similar volume (500 MW) that was driven mostly by its net-
metering scheme, with ground-mounted solar starting to play a big role through its SDE+ (an
operating feed-in-tariff subsidy) program. In 2016, the netherlands saw its first PV system
above 10 MW being built—a 31 MW installation in the northern part of the country, while
developments have begun for a 103 MW system. While PV additions in Italy increased by
23% in 2016, the absolute amount in the once world leading solar market stayed rather low
(369 MW). A good sign is Belgium’s new PV capacity (170 MW), which means a 70% growth
year-on-year; this is based, to a large extent, on residential and commercial systems.
Strong growth signals were seen primarily in Eastern Europe. Poland doubled its new
PV capacities in 2016, adding around 100 MW. The non-EU countries—Ukraine, Russia,
and Belarus—went from almost no new solar in 2015 to between 50 and 80 MW each in
2016. The total European grid capacity for solar energy is given in Fig. 3.2.
Europe was the first region worldwide that reached the level of 100 GW of cumulative
installed solar before the spring of 2016. This record was short lived as the Asia-Pacific
countries ended the year with a total PV capacity of 147.2 GW, with China installing about
one-third of Europe’s cumulative solar capacity in a single year. The bulk of Europe’s to-
tal installed solar power capacity is still carried by two countries: Germany (39.4%) and
Italy (18.2%). Some distance behind trails the United Kingdom, where a short 3-year solar
boom has resulted in an 11.1% share by the end of 2016. France remains fourth (6.8%),
Spain keeps its fifth spot (5.3%) although it has added less than 600 MW over the last
5 years (Fig. 3.2).

3.1.2 Market Segmentation

Solar PV installations in Europe remain geographically scattered. Usually, emerging mar-
kets start their solar engagement with utility-scale solar plants, which are relatively easy
to build, as there is no need for setting up sophisticated sales and installers networks or
educating customers to quickly install large volumes.