Page 45 - A Comprehensive Guide to Solar Energy Systems

40 A COMPREHEnSIVE GUIDE TO SOLAR EnERGy SySTEMS

FIGURE 3.2 The total European grid connected capacity for solar PV power. Copyright of SolarPower Europe 2017.

This has also been true for several European markets. The rule of thumb is still valid
that the less active a once prospering solar market is in Europe, the larger is the share
of total installed ground-mounted solar utility plants. After its short feed-in tariff- driven
solar boom periods based on utility-scale plants, Romania, Bulgaria, or Spain have never
managed to build up notable markets for rooftop installations. Additionally, the latest
European solar highflyer, the United Kingdom, grew primarily on subsidies for utility-scale
systems, before the program has been terminated. The newest emerging solar markets on
the continent—the Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus—have completely focus their attention
on utility-scale installations, as has Turkey. Even the netherlands, traditionally a fully-
fledged rooftop market, has started to take advantage of low-cost ground-mounted sys-
tems, while Europe’s largest solar market Germany tenders 600 MW ground-mounted
systems between 750 kW and 10 MW per year.
More than two-thirds of solar systems in Europe are on the roofs of buildings: resi-
dential, commercial, and industrial in 2016. This dominance is expected to continue. The
breakdown of the European solar PV capacity (residential, commercial, industrial, and
utility) for the period up to 2016 for selected countries is given in Fig. 3.3.

3.2 The Future: 5-Year Market Outlook (2017–21)

It is predicted that after 2016, the several yearlong European solar PV market will come
to an end. As of 2017, it is very likely that a new growth cycle will start for solar power in
Europe.