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The 1st Intersolar Summit Africa 2025 is set to transform the renewable energy landscape from March 12–13, 2025, Nairobi/Kenya. Bringing together 250 key stakeholders from across the solar, energy storage, and finance sectors, this flagship event will provide promising opportunities for networking, knowledge exchange, and collaboration.

Three European Commission institutions have joined forces to promote renewable energy in the private sector in Poland. A total of PLN 701 million, over EUR 160 million, has been made available to be passed on as loans to private individuals for the installation of photovoltaic systems and heat pumps.

MET Energia Italia has launched the first Renewable Energy Community in Lombardy. The community is open to all citizens, companies and local authorities in the area, and uses renewable energy to generate energy savings.

After months of declining prices, January marked a turning point in the European solar market, with module prices experiencing a slight rebound. While the increases are still moderate, they indicate a shift in market dynamics, suggesting that the prolonged price drops may be slowing down, according to online trading platform sun.store.

Enex trade fair showcased energy solutions like heat pumps, photovoltaics, energy management, storage systems, and e-mobility. Held on February 18-19 at Targi Kielce, it featured cutting-edge technologies spanning over 15,000 square meters and seven halls.

The electrification of the industry is not taking off in Europe due to high upfront investments, long investment cycles, increased energy costs, unfair taxation and continued subsidies for fossil fuels of over €55 billion every year. Eurelectric is calling for an electrification bank in the EU Clean Industrial Deal.

There was great interest in financially participating in the agricultural solar project in Austria. The local population in particular invested - within record time.

The Growth of Photovoltaic Systems in Poland surpassed the 20 Gigawatts line in October 2024 hitting the 21-Gigawatt mark in December.

The European renewable energy market in 2024 has seen both massive growth phases as well as uncertainties around legislation and infrastructure readiness in several European markets. Wolf Dietrich – Senior Director Development, UK & Europe of Econergy summarizes key challenges and provides an outlook on growth trends and success factors for 2025.

Tesvolt has announced a spin-off: Tesvolt Energy. The start-up’s business model makes energy trading with battery storage systems of 100 kWh and above not only possible but profitable as well.

Solar developer IB Vogt has signed an agreement to sell a 66 MW PV project to Hungarian MOL Group. The solar farm will begin commercial operation in Q1 2025. This marks the first project by IB Vogt in the Hungary.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is lending up to €50 million to Tenevo Solar Technologies EAD to build and operate a fully merchant solar photo-voltaic plant in southeastern Bulgaria. A parallel financing facility of €53 million will be provided by Raiffeisen Bank International, making the total finance package €103 million.

As part of the global strategy of the logistics company DHL, all new buildings must be climate-neutral by 2030, with the goal of achieving complete climate neutrality by 2050. The logistics company is relying heavily on photovoltaics to achieve this, including in Finland.

The “SolarMarket” in Anderlecht, a municipality of Brussels, Belgium, is a prime example of how to combine aesthetics with sustainability and citizen participation. A pioneering project example from the new “Learing from Europe” series by The smarter E.

The amendment to the European ELTIF regime is likely to bring new impetus to the energy transition. The amending regulation, which will come into force in 2024, is relevant not only for institutional investors, but especially for private investors. It opens up access to private markets and investments in renewable energies. By Robert Guzialowski

The solar energy revolution needs every available roof. Systems that use the electricity generated directly on site are particularly efficient. But what can be done when large roofs are available but the building's electricity needs are low? An example from Germany.

A lot of private capital is needed to achieve the ambitious decarbonization goals. Regulatory initiatives and in particular the reform of the European Long Term Investment Fund (ELTIF) could help institutional and private investors invest significantly more in the future. By Robert Guzialowski

Q ENERGY announced the debt financial close of its “Les Ilots Blandin” project for a total amount of EUR 50.4m, arranged by Crédit Agricole Transitions & Energies, through its financing arm Unifergie, and Bpifrance.

The Chinese government has reduced a tax break for solar panels by 4 percent. It may be a first sign that solar panel prices will rise again in the new year. Especially now that it seems likely that the Chinese government will also abolish the remaining 9 percent tax benefit in the first half of 2025, says Gerard Scheper, CEO of European Solar. "This finally seems to be the end of the declining price curve of solar panels and making it less interesting to postpone the purchase any longer."

Large battery storage systems are becoming more and more popular in Europe. Important reasons for this are the increasing demand for grid stabilization services and the shifting of peak loads. Italy and Great Britain are ahead of the game.

Grids are one of the bottlenecks for more renewable power. A new report of Eurelectric “Technologies supporting Grids for Speed” shows how existing technologies can optimise the existing grid, facilitate renewables integration and lower the overall investment bill.

The Republic of Moldova is taking major steps to encourage investment in renewable energies, expand international partnerships and achieve climate targets. Photovoltaics play an important role in this. The first tenders were recently launched.

After four years of soaring growth, the EU solar sector has hit its first deployment slowdown of the 2020s, dropping from 53% growth in 2023 to 4% in 2024. This represents a 92% slowdown of solar growth.

Axpo has signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with British Solar Renewables (BSR) to buy clean energy from its 25 MW solar PV at Whaddon Farm, Wiltshire. The site is co-located with a utility-scale 16MWh battery energy storage system (BESS).

Montenegro has a high solar potential and is taking promising steps to use more solar PV, as Ivana Vojinović, director of the Center for Climate Change, Natural Resources and Energy at the University of Donja Gorica, explains. But challenges remain.