Power grids in 19 European countries will lack more than 200GW of solar capacity

According to a new report from energy think tank Ember, solar PV deployment in several European countries has been underestimated by 205GW.

The report, "Transmission Mission: Grids in Europe's Energy Transition," examined grid development plans in 35 countries across Europe's transmission system operators, including the EU, the UK and the Western Balkans, many of which are "out of touch with the realities of the energy transition." ".

According to trade association SolarPower Europe's "business as usual" scenario, 19 of the 23 countries analyzed underestimated solar PV deployment by 205GW by 2030.

The gap between installed solar capacity and grid expansion plans is expected to continue over time, which will exacerbate grid congestion in the short term and solar projects will eventually be stuck waiting to be connected to the grid.

Only four countries - Croatia, Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands - have technical service organizations that expect solar (and wind) capacity to be higher than their current national targets. The difference in these countries ranges from 50% higher in Denmark to 200% higher in Finland.

According to the power grid plans of these four countries, the total installed capacity of solar and wind power is expected to exceed 81GW, exceeding national policy targets.

From a national level, France has the largest absolute gap between its solar installed capacity (35GW) and the national solar installed capacity target (54GW), which will be 19GW by 2030. \

Additionally, a comparison between solar and wind technologies shows that solar tends to be more susceptible to bias, with solar capacity undervalued by 60GW across 11 countries, while wind is undervalued by 27GW.

As shown in the figure below, the difference between a country's national targets and the European TSO grid plan is often caused by the timing difference between the two, with the national plan updating its targets earlier than the European TSO grid plan.

With the rapid development of clean technology, it is increasingly encountering the bottleneck of insufficient grid capacity, leading to grid connection delays, power curtailments, and increased consumer costs.