Two-thirds of Europe’s planned solar PV projects are in the UK, according to research firm IHS.
The company’s IHS PV Project Database shows that 69% of the 7GW of European projects set for installation in 2014 and 2015 will be located in the UK.
The UK is set to overhaul Germany as Europe’s largest PV market in 2014. The latest consultation by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) on support for plants over 5MW beyond 1 April 2015, could drive figures even higher this year.
“If the result of the process is a sharp end to the ROC scheme for large-scale solar projects on 1 April 2015, we expect a huge rush to beat the deadline and a surge in ground-mount PV installations in the UK in the next nine months,” said Josefin Berg, senior analyst, IHS.
“Considering that there are more than 4.8GW of planned projects, as much as 3GW could be installed through Q1 2015. The UK has become the epicentre of Europe’s ground-mount PV activity,” she added.
IHS claims that 130MW of utility-scale capacity is under construction with 71 projects larger than 5MW, and totalling 681MW in capacity, ready to begin work.