Europe Must Do More To Speed Up Rooftop Solar

• CAN Europe's latest report recommends Europe to have an annual target of at least 5 million new rooftop solar PVs in 2025
• It wants the governments of 11 countries assessed in the report to come out with clear policies to break barriers for its faster expansion
• The report writers see citizen participation through rooftop solar as significant to transition to a just and renewable energy future for the region

A new report by Climate Action Network Europe (CAN Europe) on Europe's rooftop solar segment argues the region needs to have more clear policies to break barriers blocking its expansion while recommending annual deployment of a minimum of 5 million new rooftops with solar PV in 2025.

The Rooftop Solar PV Comparison Report comes at a time when the European Commission (EC) is preparing REPowerEU and EU Solar Energy Strategy that will set out a roadmap for solar energy expansion throughout Europe. The EU Solar Strategy will be published tomorrow, on May 18. The report writers want the region to adopt the 5 million/year solar rooftops target to ensure citizens and communities can participate which will lead to a just and renewable energy future for the region.

The CAN Europe report assesses the rooftop solar deployment performance of 11 European nations in 6 key areas, namely governance, incentives & support schemes, permitting procedures, energy sharing & collective self-consumption, energy communities and additional measures to support a much higher uptake of residential rooftop solar PV.

The 11 countries covered in this report are Bulgaria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, and Spain.

While none of the countries covered do exceedingly well on the parameters, some fare better than the rest, yet report writers see major room for improvement in each nation.

They want the governments to take 'immediate action' to have right support mechanisms and incentives with a view to massively increase the uptake of rooftop solar PV in the region. They root for right incentives and support schemes with special focus on vulnerable households and energy communities. It will bring down power bills and also help fight against climate change.

"The cost- competitiveness and accessibility of rooftop solar PV makes it an invaluable solution to the current fossil fuel crisis and governments need to work to resolve any barriers for us to see solar PV being installed on rooftops across Europe and gas valves turned off," said CAN Europe's Director Chiara Martinelli.

The complete report can be downloaded for free from CAN Europe's website.

The EC is expected to make permitting for renewables easier and bring down the time for rooftop solar to 3 months under what it plans to introduce as the European Solar Rooftops Initiative, as per a Reuters report referring to leaked draft documents (see EU Planning Faster Permits For RE Projects).

Under REPowerEU, the EC has proposed to accelerate the rollout of rooftop PV systems by up to 15 TWh in 2022 (see EU's REPowerEU To Reduce Russia Reliance Short On Solar).

Member of Parliament Michael Bloss from the Greens had recently asked for a 'Solar-Act' including mandatory solar on roofs, rebuilding of the European solar manufacturing industry, and 70 million solar homes to be deployed by 2030 in the European Union.

5 million solar households by 2025 is also the target that the US Department of Energy (DOE) announced for community solar in the country in October 2021, but this would be on a cumulative basis, up from 600,000 solar-powered community households at the time of the announcement. Moreover, community solar in the US is usually based on off-site ground-mount power plants that supply solar power to the communities (see 2025 Community Solar Target For US).