Europe's solar heat capacity to reach 140 GWth by 2030

Solar heat in Europe could grow to 140 GWth of installed capacity at the end of the decade with a potential to reach 2,000 GWth by 2050, industry association Solar Heat Europe said in a roadmap designed to speed up heat decarbonisation across the continent.

With such an installed capacity in 2030, the European solar thermal sector could replace up to 12.1 billion cubic metres of imported gas and save 33 million tonnes of annual carbon dioxide emissions.

The roadmap comes in the context of the REPowerEU plan and includes a list of decisive measures that policymakers at European, national, regional, and local levels must take in order to achieve rapid deployment of solar thermal capacity in Europe.

The necessary actions include prioritising solar thermal and other green energy sources in urban planning, accelerated deployment programmes for buildings and industry, promoting the use of on-site thermal energy storage coupled with solar thermal, providing financial support to consumers and businesses, developing a qualified workforce as well as EU support to enlarge the current solar thermal manufacturing capacity in Europe.

‘’What Europe is facing now is not a gas crisis, it is a heat crisis. Heat is half of the energy consumed in Europe and solar heat has a critical role to play in the response to this crisis and to the energy transition, as a clean, competitive, and reliable source of heat for European homes and industry”, said Solar Heat Europe's secretary-general Pedro Dias.

According to Solar Heat Europe's vice president Guglielmo Cioni, the solar heat sector, whose potential has been underestimated, must receive the sale level of political and financial support as renewable electricity because it offers various advantages for the resilience, security, and competitiveness of the European energy sector.

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