Solar flexibility solutions can boost EU's competitiveness: SolarPower Europe

Industry association SolarPower Europe stressed at its summit in Brussels the necessity of extending storage and flexibility capacity to maximize solar PV power's potential for Europe's energy security.

"We see that solar flexibility sets the course for the competitive energy costs that our industry is expecting. We did the math -- an energy system based on electricity flexibility and renewables will drive the day-ahead electricity cost [in Europe] down by 25% by 2030," the association's President Aristotelis Chantavas said March 26 at the Solar Power Summit, which celebrated the SolarPower Europe's 40th anniversary.

SolarPower Europe said that an adequate deployment of flexibility solutions could reduce solar curtailment by up to 49% in 2040 compared to the baseline scenario, generating Eur160 billion in annual net cost savings. It could also save at least 27% of the Eur253-282 billion in distribution grid investments toward 2030.

Not least, enabling demand-side flexibility solutions can bring down balancing energy costs by up to 66% compared to gas peak generation capacity.

The association announced plans to establish a dedicated European battery storage platform, which will highlight storage case studies and regulatory best practices across Europe while operating as an external arm of reinforced advocacy work on storage policy at the European level.

SolarPower Europe said that battery systems, or BESS, could reach 11 GW of capacity by 2030 with an assumed duration of 3 hours, resulting in a total battery capacity of 33 GWh. However, the UK alone currently hosts 62% of Europe's PV+BESS projects, compared with just 6% in Germany.

"We're hard at work ensuring that solar continues to deliver for Europe for another 40 years. Solar, storage, and flexibility are the fast track to a more secure, competitive energy system," said Walburga Hemetsberger, CEO of SolarPower Europe.

Demand for solar PV has picked up in the second half of the first quarter of 2025 coinciding with depleting stock in Rotterdam. This has helped module prices firm by around 3% throughout March. Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assessed utility-scale TOPCon solar modules at 105 cents/W on March 27 for volumes above 50MW.

European solar installed capacity hit 65.5 GW in 2024. The technology has the potential to become the world's largest resource of electricity by 2033, according to the International Energy Agency.

Hybrid PV, building-mounted systems to play major role

Two new reports were unveiled during the summit, underlying "the potential of solar and storage delivering European energy security and competitiveness."

SolarPower Europe's Embracing the benefits of Hybrid PV systems report estimates that hybrid projects have a 10% lower Levelised Cost of Electricity, or LCOE, compared to stand-alone projects.

Flexible Buildings, Resilient Grids report says that flexibility solutions available in buildings -- including BESS, electric vehicles and heat pumps -- are able to meet up to 52% of daily, 35% of weekly, and 29% of annual flexibility needs in Europe.

The report also shows that in Germany, Spain and Italy, combining a home PV system with a heat pump allows for 46%-67% higher annualized energy bill savings between 2023 and 2030, compared to a scenario with a PV-only installation. Rooftop technology was 60% of Europe's newly installed solar capacity in 2024, with the potential to hit up to 1.1 TW.

Several recommendations were presented in these reports, such as designing appropriate support schemes, accelerating permitting for hybrid systems, and allowing building flexibility to access balancing markets. Particularly, a dynamic grid tariff could steer up to 100 TWh of load annually in Germany, SolarPower Europe said citing a study from think tank Agora Energiewende.

"We need to deliver the full benefits of a true Energy Union. An Energy Union that is cheaper, cleaner and more connected. To achieve this, I strongly welcome SolarPower Europe's decisive push to ramp up solar energy in Europe," EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen said during the event.