The European solar energy sector has experienced remarkable growth, with the installation of over 40 GW of solar capacity in the EU in 2022, representing a remarkable 50% year-on-year increase compared to 2021. Despite this encouraging surge in solar adoption, the permitting process continues to act as a bottleneck, constraining the sector's true potential, notes SolarPower Europe in a new analysis.

The EU’s emergency law in response to the energy crisis – the RES booster – was adopted nine months ago to accelerate the deployment of renewables. With nine-months left in the law’s lifetime, there are already some upgrades in national permitting frameworks, thanks to political will and creative best practices.

Country by country

In its new analysis, the association explained that across various European countries, recent data underscores the prevalence of permitting delays, with some projects reporting waiting periods exceeding 2 years, and, in some instances, stretching up to 4 years, which is twice the maximum duration stipulated by the 2018 Renewable Energy Directive.

SolarPower Europe evaluated 16 EU countries’ delivery on 8 key areas of improving the paperwork procedure for completing solar energy projects. Halfway through the application period of the EU’s emergency renewable energy law, the analysis showed that country adoption of EU permitting rules is between 13% and 75%. Belgium (Flanders), Germany, and Portugal perform particularly well, while Bulgaria, Czechia, the Netherlands, and Poland have the lowest rates of implementation.

However, in most EU countries, the improvements are still not yet at the scale needed. Key issues are still outstanding across Europe and for the association the first one is that modernisation of the administration, digitalisation and streamlining of processes or staffing and training of administrative staff is happening too slowly. "This has direct consequences on permitting deadlines, and could lead the EU in not meeting the deadlines required by the RED. More direct monitoring of the performance of member state, together with capacity building actions, are urgently needed," SolarPower Europe says.

The second issue identified by the association is that implementation of acceleration areas can make or break renewables permitting. And the third critical point is that it is that Member states succeed most in implementing simplified processes for rooftop PV, as well as simplified grid connection. But the scale of ambition falls short compared to what is required by the energy crisis: while the provisions on simplified permitting should apply to all PV on artificial land, they are often limited only to rooftops. While simple notification grid connection could be applied to all assets under 50 kW, they are often limited to 10.8 kW or below.