Cover Story

With the need to accelerate its decarbonisation and further secure its electricity independence, Europe is at the crossroads to a faster growth in solar PV deployment. Jonathan Touriño Jacobo explores how Eastern and Southern European countries have emerged in that race as key players for the European Union to reach 740GW of solar capacity installed by 2030.

Tom Kenning reports on Poland, a fast-rising star in the European photovoltaic market, where recent growth has been fuelled by the prosumer segment.

Jonathan Tourino Jacobo caught up with Vladimir Tabutov, founder and CEO of Bulgarian solar power project developer HEC Solar, following Solar Media’s Large Scale Solar Europe event in Lisbon, Portugal. They spoke about recent and upcoming changes in the Bulgarian regulations regime for adopting renewable energy technology.

Tom Kenning on one of the most promising up-and-coming solar power players of Southern Europe, Greece. He asked experts about the challenges and opportunities for PV in the country.

With appropriate policy support and investment incentives, agrivoltaics could play a crucial role in Africa’s green energy transition, writes Dr Richard Randle-Boggis of the University of Sheffield.

Many companies working in the Australian utility-scale solar sector are exploring opportunities to integrate agricultural production into projects, writes Lucinda Tonge, a senior policy officer at the Clean Energy Council.

With France’s rooftop and ground-mount solar tenders featuring a sub-family for agrivoltaics, Xavier Daval of France Agrivoltaïsme details routes to market for new projects.

To make agrivoltaics a widely available option for developers in the US, questions about cost, liability and other business, legal and regulatory issues need to be addressed, writes Michele Boyd of the US Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office.

Max Trommsdorff of Fraunhofer ISE and Jens Vollprecht, a lawyer at Becker Büttner Held, detail the legal aspects of agrivoltaics deployment in Germany.

Combining solar plants with agriculture is becoming more prevalent in markets globally, increasing the availability of sites for new PV projects while reducing land-use conflicts. Will Norman details how the industry can take advantage of agrivoltaic opportunities while navigating construction, operation and maintenance challenges.