The EU has doubled its solar capacity in the last 3 years. Together with the European Data Journalism Network, DW analyzed how subsidies made this possible, what supports are still available, and what still needs to happen.
This project is a collaboration within the European Data Journalism Network.
Project lead: Deutsche Welle, story by Kira Schacht. Zsolt Bogar, Sofia Kleftaki, Michal Gostkiewicz and Emmy Sasipornkarn contributed research to this investigation.
Collaborators: Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia, El Orden Mundial
In this repository, you will find methodology, data and code behind this investigation.
Links will be added as articles are published.
Data on solar power subsidies was collated from various sources and collected for this project by the collaborators.
We identified subsidies applicable to two theoretical personas:
- "Adam": Tenant, wants to install balcony solar panels with a capacity of 800 Watt
- "Bianca": Homeowner of a single-family home, wants to install rooftop solar panels with a capacity of 9 kW
We included any:
- public subsidies
- on the national, regional and local level
- still open for applications in January 2025
All entries were verified by at least one collaborator independently.
In total, we identified 85 subsidies:
| Level | Adam | Bianca | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regional | 6 | 14 | 20 |
| National | 12 | 30 | 42 |
| Local | 8 | 15 | 23 |
| Total | 26 | 59 | 85 |
Among them were:
- 5 feed-in tariff schemes
- 36 installation cost grants
- 10 installation cost loans
- 17 VAT reductions
- 14 other tax benefits
In 17 European countries:
Spain, Germany, Austria, Italy, Netherlands, Hungary, Sweden, Portugal, Poland, Belgium, Serbia, Romania, Luxembourg, Greece, France, Croatia, Ireland
A complete overview can be found in this Google Sheet or in the file DW&EDJNet Solar power subsidies Europe database Public.xlsx.
To analyze how much money each installation cost grant might pay out under the two scenarios, we collected average retail price examples for 800W and 9kW systems in participating countries. Whereevery possible, we included installation costs, which are covered by most grants we identified.
With 38 price examples from 12 countries, we concluded the following average prices:
- "Adam": 800W plug-in balcony solar system: around 650 Euros, ranging from 417 Euros (Netherlands) to 929 Euros (Poland)
- "Bianca": 9kW rooftop solar system: around 9,500 Euros, ranging from 3,156 Euros (Poland) to 15,975 Euros (Austria)
A complete overview can be found in this Google Sheet or in the file DW&EDJNet Solar power subsidies Europe database Public.xlsx.
In addition to the data collated manually, the following data sources and analysis steps were used in this investigation.
All background data free to be published can be found in the file Solar power expansion Europe background datasets.xlsx
Statistics on solar power capacity per country were downloaded from IRENASTAT:
Online Data Query Tool >
Power Capacity and Generation >
Electricity statistics (MW/GWh) by Country/area, Technology, Data Type, Grid connection and Year >
All countries / Solar photovoltaic / Electricity Installed Capacity (MW) / All Grid connection / All years
Countries were grouped into regions with the help of the UN Standard country or area codes for statistical use.
Total global installation cost of solar power over time were downloaded from IRENA
Download Chart Data >
IRENA-Datafile-RenPwrGenCosts-in-2023-v1 >
Fig 3.1
Solar Power Europe kindly provided the following data on from their EU Market Outlook for Solar Power 2024-2028:
- Cumulative Installed Solar Power Capacity per EU country, Historical data 2000-2024 and forecast 2025-2028, in MW-dc
- Segmentation of installations in the European Union, cumulative capacity 2024, in MW-dc
- Cumulative solar power capacity 2030 under Medium Scenario per EU country,
- Solar power targets per EU country for 2030 as reflected in countries' National Energy and Climate Plans
To calculate relative annual capacities, the data from Solar Power Europe was normalized using population data from Eurostat: