Presentation

EUPD Group: European PV Growth Flattens Amid Significant C&I and Utility Shift

Daniel Fuchs, CCO at EUPD Group, presented at Addressing Environmental Adaptability for C&I Liquid-Cooling ESS, revealing that while European PV installations set new records, growth is flattening. He argued that both PV and energy storage markets are undergoing a significant transition towards Commercial & Industrial (C&I) and utility-scale segments.

EUPD Group
Daniel Fuchs
CCO · EUPD Group
Filmed ·Webinar·Runtime 16:38Presentation ·
Presentation
Webinar: Addressing Environmental Adaptability for C&I Liquid-Cooling ESS ·
16:38
Filmed on site · No editorial direction beyond question set · Captions auto-generated, reviewed by EUPD Research

Key takeaways

4 points · 16:38 video
  1. European PV Growth Slows
    Annual PV capacity growth in Europe has flattened to 2% from 2023 to 2024, with expectations of 66-69 GW new deployments this year. This indicates market maturity alongside fierce competition and geopolitical factors.
  2. Segmental Shift to C&I/Utility
    Both PV and energy storage markets are shifting significantly from residential to C&I and utility-scale segments. The C&I sector saw its share in PV rise from 37% to 45%, while utility-scale increased from 25% to 27%.
  3. C&I Storage Market Soars
    The dominance of residential energy storage is declining as significant investments flow into C&I and utility-scale projects. C&I storage is forecast to grow by 60% from 2023 to 2024, with capacities projected to rise from 700 MW in 2021 to almost 11 GWh by 2028 across selected European markets.
  4. Policy Drives C&I Development
    Policy visibility and certainty are identified as major barriers, while country-level targets and incentive programs are the key drivers for growth in the C&I energy storage market. This is particularly crucial for segments in their early growth stages.

Europe's Evolving PV Landscape: Flattening Growth and Regional Shifts

Europe's annual installed solar PV capacity is experiencing a period of flattening growth, recording only a 2% increase from 2023 to 2024, despite setting new records. According to Daniel Fuchs, CCO at EUPD Group, this trend reflects market maturity and intensifying competition, alongside geopolitical conditions that do not always favor rapid renewable energy deployment. EUPD Group anticipates 66 to 69 gigawatts of new PV deployments across Europe in 2024. While some major markets like Germany have seen slightly reduced growth and countries such as Spain, Poland, and the Netherlands experienced declines in PV installations, other regions are surging. Fuchs highlighted France, Italy, Greece, Portugal, and Romania as key growth markets in 2024. Emerging markets like Lithuania, Ireland, and Estonia are also showing potential to reach gigawatt-scale capacity.

"We see that the growth curve is flattening with only 2%, we saw from 2023 to 2024." Fuchs · 01:20

The Commercial & Industrial Revolution in Energy Storage

A profound segmental shift is underway in both the European PV and energy storage markets, moving away from residential dominance towards Commercial & Industrial (C&I) and utility-scale projects. Fuchs indicated that the C&I segment's share in PV rose from 37% to 45% between 2023 and 2024, with utility scale also increasing from 25% to 27%. This transition is driven by ambitious climate targets, economies of scale, and the need to address grid constraints and negative electricity prices. The energy storage sector mirrors this shift, with the dominance of residential installations decreasing. Daniel Fuchs emphasized that significant investments are now flowing into C&I and utility-scale storage projects. EUPD Group forecasts a massive 60% growth for the C&I storage segment from 2023 to 2024, with annual installed capacity in selected European markets projected to escalate from 700 megawatts in 2021 to almost 11 gigawatt hours by 2028.

"The dominance of the residential energy storage segment across all Europe is decreasing. The dominance is coming to an end." Fuchs · 08:57

Navigating Market Drivers and Barriers for C&I Storage

Looking at C&I storage, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom are expected to be the leading markets in Europe, according to EUPD Group’s forecasts. However, some markets, including Austria, Switzerland, Spain, and France, are identified as needing further policy pushes to accelerate their deployment. Fuchs stressed the necessity for manufacturers to develop tailored strategies for each market, leveraging precise local knowledge to maximize their market share. EUPD Group’s EPC monitor reveals that policy visibility and uncertainty represent the major barriers to C&I market growth across Europe. Conversely, country-level targets and incentive programs serve as the primary drivers, particularly for segments in their early stages of development. These incentives are crucial for providing the initial push needed to scale up deployments in the C&I sector.

"Policy visibility and uncertainty were the major barriers to the C&I market across all the countries in Europe we have researched." Fuchs · 14:12

Chapters

Chapters · click to jump
00:00
Introduction to EUPD Group and Presentation Scope
Daniel Fuchs introduces himself as CCO of EUPD Group, outlining the company's commitment to energy transition through market research, advisory, and certification.
00:49
European PV Market Overview and Growth Trends
Fuchs discusses the flattening growth curve of annual installed European PV capacity, citing market maturity, competition, and geopolitical conditions as contributing factors.
02:47
Country-Specific PV Installation Dynamics
The presentation details diverging PV deployment trends across Europe, noting reduced growth in Germany and declines in some countries, while others like France and Italy are surging.
04:49
Shifting Segmental Shares in European PV
Fuchs explains the segmental shift in PV, with C&I and utility-scale gaining share, and residential experiencing a moderate decline, driven by climate targets and economies of scale.
07:05
Key Trends in European Energy Storage Deployments
The discussion moves to European energy storage, highlighting Germany as a leading market, followed by Italy and the UK, with varying segmental dominance across countries.
08:33
The Declining Dominance of Residential Storage
Fuchs emphasizes the end of residential storage dominance in Europe, driven by significant investments in C&I and utility-scale projects and a push for increased self-consumption.
11:29
Forecasted Growth and Leaders in C&I Storage
The presentation forecasts substantial growth for C&I energy storage, projecting significant capacity increases and identifying Germany, Italy, and the UK as future market leaders.
13:37
Drivers, Barriers, and Strategies for C&I Storage
Fuchs discusses policy visibility and uncertainty as major barriers, while country-level targets and incentive programs are key drivers for C&I market growth, necessitating tailored strategies.
14:56
EUPD Group's Role and Global Presence
Daniel Fuchs concludes by reiterating EUPD Group's global presence and expertise in market research, advisory, certification, and improvement services across various sustainability fields.

Interview transcript

Auto-generated · reviewed · ~3 min read
My name is Daniel Fuchs. I'm the chief customer officer here at EUPV Group, working in the industry for the last 15 years in the solar coaster, how we call it. But yeah, at EUPV Group, we are extremely committed, excited to boost the energy transition on global level through really in-depth market research, through advisory services, through certification, as well as improvement services in form of branding, marketing, et cetera. So, yeah, my presentation today for you is titled Assessing Europe's Market and Developments for Both Solar as well as Energy Storage. So yeah, when we look at the first slide of my presentation, I'm showcasing the annual installed solar PV capacity on a European level. As we all know, the last 12 to 18 months in Europe have been quite challenging. And although the newly installed PV capacity broke another record last year, we see that the growth curve is flattening with only 2%, we saw from 2023 to 2024. We have a lot of reasons for that. It is shown as a really nice duck curve or S-curve, how we call it, that speaks on the one hand for market maturity, but also, in the same context, indicates that there is a fierce competition going on. And looking throughout Europe, we are quite fragmented, with 30 countries here, that we do have geopolitical conditions lately that are not, let's say, extremely pushing the deployment of renewable energies. When we look on the year running, 2025, we see this trend, a very slight growth of the European markets continuing, and you see it in the last bullet point on the right side. We expect between 66 and 69 gigawatts of new PV deployments throughout all Europe this year. Now let's take a look more on a country level. And we see that out of the deployments, we had approximately 65 gigawatts. Only the top 10 PV markets last year installed 54 gigawatts of this capacity. Nevertheless, also here we see very diverging trends happening. For instance, in Germany, after the huge boom in the early 2020s or '21, '22, we saw a slightly reduced deployment growth with only 12%. We see it near the flag. But also we saw a few setbacks for Spain, Poland, and the Netherlands, as well as Austria, who saw declines of 13%, 11%, and for the Netherlands, even 29% in the PV installations in the last year compared to 2023. But let's not underestimate the newcomers as well. We see there are countries now surging in terms of PV deployment, especially France, Italy, Greece, Portugal, and Romania were highlights in 2024, and there are more emerging markets coming towards the gigawatt circle in Europe. And we have here on our radar, clearly Lithuania, Ireland, as well as Estonia, which shouldn't be really underestimated. So why is this happening, or let's say some reasons. We see for sure, and this is now the underlying data-based facts, what Camel from Pylontech already said and underlined with the C&I commitment. We are focusing here on the European level, and we split it down to a segmental level. And as you can see here, it's quite granular with residential, and then in the C&I space, we even have four different metrics. And then we have the utility space. So why is this segmental shift happening? For sure, we see that the countries with their ambitious climate targets have to meet these. There is still a shortage of workforce in some countries in the residential segment, and we do see economies of scale coming that do speak for larger systemsAlso, I mentioned it before on the slide, there are fear factors that also should be taken into consideration in terms of geopolitical changes, lacking incentives, et cetera. So when we look on the comparison between 2023 and 2024, we see that the C&I segment rose from already 37% to 45%, and the utility scale segment from 25% to 27%. Obviously, as this is a 100% bar chart here, we saw a slight moderate decline of the residential segment for PV of 8% from '23 to 2024. Now we are looking on the storage side of the industry, and here we see the deployments on a country level, and only the top 10 storage markets in Europe installed approximately 20 gigawatt hours of new capacity in the last year. In terms of the total newly installed storage capacity, still Germany is the driving force within the European Union and even across intercontinental level in terms of volume, followed by a surging Italian market, and as well as the UK is on number three. For Italy, as well as the UK, the majority of last year's installations, and we see it later on as well, is coming from the C&I as well as utility scale segments. Utility, especially in the United Kingdom, heavily booming. Whereas Germany is still quite dominated, until now, I have to say, this will also probably change in the near future by residential level installations. So this slide I already introduced, we look now or we assess the countries also more granularly on the segmental level. And the major, let's say, message here of this slide and what we have been seeing based on the data and our experience lately is that the dominance of the residential energy storage segment across all Europe is decreasing. The dominance is coming to an end. It's still a very lucrative and big business, obviously, in Europe, but it won't be longer dominated only by residential storage as it was in the past. So across Europe, what does it mean? There are significant investments are now flowing into the C&I and utility scale projects, and we also see a growing push for increased self-consumption. So all together, combining these dynamics, they are driving profound shifts in the European energy storage market. Also, as PV and storage normally go hand in hand, which makes sense, we see a similar, here on the next slide, a similar segmental shift happening in the energy storage space. Why is this here happening? We have a pull forward effect because of the conflicts we currently see. As I mentioned beforehand, there is a significant investment volume going in large scale PV and also storage. There are already grid constraints. We need that for buffering. And we also see more often negative electricity prices. So while the share of residential storage is expected to remain unchanged, more or less, the market growth in total, here we see it based on gigawatt hours and it's not on percentage like in the PV slide, is driven by the C&I as well as utility scale segments. And for the C&I segment, we expect a growth from last year to this year in Europe of a massive 60%. So it is uptaking, extremely growing. When we then take a really close look into the annual installed C&I storage capacity, here we have selected European countries. This is also speaking for itself. This is not yet maturity. This is growth. We are now in the start of a very big thing in the C&I energy storage space in the very near future with massive increases in deployments.And we see it here also on the right, we have pointed it out. The annual installed capacity is to rise from 700 megawatts in 2021 to almost 11 gigawatt hours in 2028, yeah, across these selected European markets only. This is not whole Europe. The market leaders here are, let's say again, as I have shown in the previous slides, this is a forecast slide now, will be Germany, Italy, as well as the United Kingdom. But also, as we see here in our forecasting, some markets do need a further push and lagging a little bit behind that include Austria, Switzerland, Spain, as well as France. So what is really needed? We see a highly fragmented level here on how C&I energy deployments are pushed by incentives, how they are going naturally. Manufacturers do need to have tailored strategies for each of these markets and should have precise knowledge in order to gain the biggest share or piece of the cake possible in the big markets. So I will actually conclude here more or less with some voices from the field we have gained. This is based on our current commercial and industrial EPC monitor, that is out and available for everyone. And we have, as the name says, surveyed and investigated primary data insights from EPC companies. So we see when we look on the barriers, the policy visibility and uncertainty were the major barriers to the C&I market across all the countries in Europe we have researched. When we go to the drivers, nevertheless, this is the upper part, we see conversely, country-level targets and incentive programs served as the key driver for market growth. This is something when a market or a segment is in the early stage, is based also on our experience giving the major push in order to increase these segments and deployments there. To finish my short impulse presentation today, to underline the significance of what Kamil already mentioned about EUPD research. I guess most of the audience already know us. We are a globally operating company, EUPD Group, focusing on market research, focusing on advisory, certification, as well as improvement in terms of branding. We do have a very impressive global network that we have qualified and continuously expanded globally over the last 25 years of our company existence. And here you see our company group structure. So our major fields of operations are not just energy. So most of you will probably know the renewable energy or smart energy space of EUPD Group. We are also, since many years, very active in the field of ESG. We do have an ESG summit in Germany, a major event, flagship event we are hosting at the end of November every year in Bonn, Germany. And we are also covering a lot of social sustainability parts. So that's our nature, that's our DNA, where we come from, and we work with all the tier one companies together. So all across the value chain. And with that, I would like to thank you very much
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Frequently asked questions

While new PV capacity records are still being set, Daniel Fuchs stated that the overall growth curve in Europe is flattening, showing only a 2% increase from 2023 to 2024. This indicates market maturity, increased competition, and geopolitical influences.

According to Daniel Fuchs, there’s a significant shift from residential to C&I and utility-scale segments in European PV. The C&I sector’s share rose to 45% in 2024, and utility-scale to 27%, driven by factors like ambitious climate targets and economies of scale.

Daniel Fuchs indicates that the long-standing dominance of the residential energy storage segment across Europe is decreasing. Significant investments are now flowing into C&I and utility-scale projects, fundamentally shifting the market dynamics.

The C&I energy storage market is projected for substantial growth, with Daniel Fuchs forecasting a 60% increase from 2023 to 2024. EUPD Group anticipates that annual installed capacity in selected European markets will rise from 700 megawatts in 2021 to nearly 11 gigawatt hours by 2028.

Daniel Fuchs identified policy visibility and uncertainty as primary barriers to C&I market growth across Europe. Conversely, country-level targets and targeted incentive programs are critical drivers, providing the necessary push for this segment’s development.