Europe’s top solar body is embracing batteries

SolarPower Europe is one of the most influential clean energy trade bodies in the world. The premier association for the European solar photovoltaic (PV) sector, it unites more than 300 organisations across 40-plus countries and provides market intelligence through reports such as the prestigious Global Market Outlook for Solar Power.

The body’s vision is “to lead our members to make solar the core of a smart, sustainable, secure and inclusive energy system in order to reach climate neutrality in the EU well before 2050," for example by supporting the European Union’s Green Deal and promoting a net zero economy in Europe, with PV as the main pillar.

But since the middle of 2025, SolarPower Europe has also been promoting batteries—and in a big way. In July 2025, the PV association launched Battery Storage Europe, an industry initiative to advance the business case and regulatory framework for battery storage across the Union.

The Battery Storage Europe Platform, which includes major industrial players such as EDP, Statkraft and Sunotec, is calling for an increase in European battery storage capacity. But not any old increase. Instead, its objective is to foster a tenfold boom in capacity by 2030, from 50GWh to more than 500GWh. 

Why this sudden interest in battery storage? The move comes at a critical juncture for Europe’s solar industry fortunes. 

Solar PV has now consolidated its position as the cheapest source of electric generation across much of Europe, with a minimum levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) of just €0.041 per kilowatt-hour even in Germany in 2024, according to the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems. 

This level beats onshore wind, with a minimum LCOE of €0.043 per kilowatt-hour, and is way below the LCOEs for new coal-fired power plants (€0.15 per kilowatt-hour) or combined-cycle gas turbines (€0.109). And “the LCOE of nuclear power plants would likely be significantly higher than that of natural gas,” the Institute says.

This cost advantage is expected to persist in future, with Fraunhofer estimating a minimum LCOE of €0.031 per kilowatt-hour for solar PV by 2045, compared to €0.039 for onshore wind, €0.141 for combined-cycle gas and €0.15 for lignite-fuelled coal plants.

Not only is PV cheap, but it is also remarkably easy to finance and install, with 15% of all new European solar generation capacity in 2025 coming from systems that people have installed on their own homes. Thanks to these factors, solar has become wildly popular in Europe.

In 2024, solar generation increased in every European Union country and the bloc benefited from a record 66GW of capacity additions and 54 terawatt-hours of clean electricity from PV, up 22% from 2023 levels, according to the consultancy Ember. 

This made solar the fastest-growing European Union power source in 2024, Ember says. It delivered 11% of the EU’s electricity, more than coal for the first time ever. 

And in June 2025, solar passed another milestone to become the European Union’s largest source of electricity, delivering 22.1% of the power mix, SolarPower Europe says. But the solar industry is now facing headwinds. 

Solar capacity growth is stalling, with 2025 installation rates expected to contract compared to the year before, for the first time in almost a decade. This is because electricity prices are lower—in no small part thanks to renewables such as solar—and many support schemes are being retired. 

The solar energy sector is particularly susceptible to low electricity pricing because of price cannibalisation, or the tendency of PV installations to compete with each other at times of high production. Once PV starts covering most or all hourly demand, the value of further generation drops to zero, ruining the case for more investment. 

But this challenge can be overcome by storing excess solar production and using or selling it when electricity demand outstrips supply. 

Adding storage to large PV plants also helps to overcome grid connection constraints—if you can save 20% of your production for later, then you can build a solar plant that can have 20% more than the capacity you are allowed to export at any point in time.

On the launch of the Battery Storage Europe Platform, Walburga Hemetsberger, SolarPower Europe’s CEO, said: "Solar and storage are the perfect pair. As solar installations soar across Europe, battery storage must grow at the same pace.”

SolarPower Europe has published a report on the benefits of hybrid PV systems pairing solar with storage or wind. “Hybrid solar, combining solar with storage or wind, is key for Europe’s energy transition,” says the report. 

“It supports system flexibility, improves the cost-effectiveness of an asset and makes energy generation more reliable… Storage allows surplus solar energy to be stored and used when demand is high or sunlight is low… This increases the number of hours per year when renewables fulfil the EU’s energy demand.”

The solar industry body has also brought its considerable analyst resources to bear on Europe’s battery energy storage system (BESS) market, issuing an outlook report supported by the Electrical Energy Storage trade group. 

“Our five-year outlook foresees significant BESS expansion in Europe—a sixfold increase to nearly 120GWh by 2029, driving total capacity to 400GWh, yet falls short of energy transition needs,” says SolarPower Europe. To improve adoption, the report contains five policy recommendations:

• Getting the European Commission to adopt an energy storage action plan within a broader flexibility package, to harmonise markets, remove regulatory barriers and ensure storage is integral to national energy strategies. 
• Reforming grid connection procedures and pricing frameworks to facilitate access, prioritise hybrid systems and fairly allocate costs. 
• Giving BESS full and fair access to electricity markets with clear revenue streams, updated guarantees of origin frameworks and permission to stack revenues. 
• Making balancing markets fully competitive and accessible to storage through harmonised technical standards and transparent procurement. 
• Enhancing smart metering and data communication standards to enable real-time energy management and seamless BESS integration.

These are all measures that Europe’s energy storage developers can get behind. And having them voiced by the solar industry, a sector that has the potential to support 1.1 million jobs in Europe by 2030, is no small thing.