What’s happened in the year since the EU Solar Charter?

The European Union has set a goal of at least 30 GW of European solar manufacturing, at each stage of the value chain, by 2030. Europe’s solar industry faces challenging market conditions in which to sell their products and scale up. We continue our urgent calls to support these critical links in the solar-led energy transition.  

Since our last edition, the European Solar Charter passed its one-year anniversary. The Charter was signed in Brussels on 15th April 2024 by 23 EU Energy Ministers, as well as around 100 representatives from the European solar sector. Signed during an Informal Energy Ministerial in Brussels, the Charter is intended to act as a commitment from governments and the sector to support European solar manufacturing. So what’s happened in the year since the Charter signing? Read on to uncover what’s working, and what more needs to be done, along with our newsletter’s usual round up trending news.  

Friday Focus: EU Solar Charter 

First, a recap – what exactly is the EU Solar Charter? The Charter asks companies – and crucially, the governments of EU Member States – to commit to:  

• A series of voluntary actions, like including solar PV products in portfolios of relevant market players and incorporating resilience considerations in PV off-takers’ procurement strategies. 

• To maintain and, where possible, expand the current production capacity in Europe, in line with expected growing demand for their products, based on the public and private commitments. 

• An early implementation of the Net-Zero Industry Act, and promotion of innovative forms of solar energy deployment, such as agri-PV, floating solar, infrastructure-integrated PV, vehicle-integrated PV or building-integrated PV. 

When the Charter was signed, we welcomed it as an important moment of recognition. The continent’s governments made a high-level promise to our manufacturers, acknowledging their critical role in the strategic supply chains of today and tomorrow. It’s also important context that the Net-Zero Industry Act came a couple of months later, in June 2024, and looks set to materialise much of the goals of the Charter. 

By October 2024, we were able to conduct an assessment of how the Charter was landing across Europe (check out the six-month assessment here). In short, there’s some good steps, but more action is needed –  even if most EU countries have signed the Charter, the implementation of supportive solar manufacturing policies is mixed. 

We split our assessment across two types of policies. ‘Push’ policies, which actively support solar factories being built/scaled, and ‘pull’ policies, which create demand for EU-made, or ‘resilient’ solar products.  

While most in the industry would agree that ‘push policies’ have been slow to come – and too slow certainly for the manufacturers who closed their doors in 2024 – there are some positive signals on the horizon. This month, Dutch-based MCPV, a heterojunction solar module manufacturer, received approval for a €10 million grant for the construction of a 2.5 GW PV panel factory in Spain. 

The Net-Zero Industry Act is doing the heavy lifting in establishing ‘pull policies’ and carving out demand for resilient solar products via public procurement and part of public energy auctions. Early estimations point to a resilience market in EU solar deployment of around 4-6 GW in auctions and 2-3 GW in public procurement as early as 2026.  

The European Commission has defined ‘resilience’ in a flexible way. EU countries could implement it to promote the use of solar products from anywhere other than the dominant source of supply (i.e. China) or national authorities could get more specific and take ‘resilient’ solar to mean ‘Made in Europe’.  

We can see the roll out of such pull policies in countries like Austria, who have just introduced a ‘Made-in-EU’ bonus system. This means that it will now be possible for developers to receive an investment bonus of up to 20% for solar PV and 10% for battery storage projects made with European components. This sets a good offtake pipeline for European solar manufacturers to count on.  

To complement our monitoring the rollout of the EU Solar Charter and the Net-Zero Industry Act, we’re planning a new publication for Q3 2025. We want to dig deeper into the exact numbers (and financing) needed to get to the 30 GW target of EU manufacturing for 2030 – so watch this space.  

Shine On Policy Cast

Interested in hearing more about the EU Solar Charter? Check out our latest Policy Cast on the topic, with SolarPower Europe Head of Supply Chains, Anett Ludwig.

Solarcoaster

The latest ups and downs in the EU solar manufacturing landscape. 

EXPANSION: DAS Solar has started constructing a 3 GW solar module factory in France.  

SUPPORT: Midsummer secured a € 2.8M grant to focus on developing Tandem cells in Italy. 

ALARM BELLS: After previous worrying signals from Meyer Burger, the company has decided to reduce working hours for around 300 employees in its Swiss facility. 

TRADE: The US Commerce Department reveals high solar import tariffs 

Solar Manufacturing Matters is a fortnightly newsletter on the European solar manufacturing landscape. Every other Friday, check out our latest EU policy analysis and a roundup of solar manufacturing market news.

From SolarPower Europe, the award-winning European trade association with over 300 members active at every point in the solar PV value chain.