Sweden deployed less solar in 2025 than the year prior despite record growth in the large-scale segment. Solar association Svensk Solenergi predicts last year was likely the bottom of Sweden's installation curve.

Sweden commissioned 652 MW of new solar last year, according to estimates from Swedish solar association Svensk Solenergi. The figure is down on the 848 MW installed in 2024 and takes cumulative capacity to around 5.4 GW.

Residential installations totaled 239 MW in 2025, a 39% year-on-year decrease. Alex Jankell, head of politics at Svensk Solenergi, told pv magazine the household market has been impacted by the removal of a tax rebate scheme as of the start of this year. He added that lower energy prices in comparison to massive hikes in 2022, higher interest rates and inflation have also impacted the market segment.

Although the residential market contracted in 2025, installations smaller than 20 kW continue to represent more than half of Sweden’s solar market, with a little over 3 GW of total capacity. There are now just over 287,000 solar power plants of less than 20 kW in Sweden, equivalent to 90% of all grid-connected solar plants.

Commercial and industrial installations reached 215 MW in 2025, down 35% year-on-year, but utility-scale installations increased, deploying a record 198 MW for 46% more than in 2024.

The large-scale segment accounted for 30% of new solar power in 2025, compared to 7% in 2024. New installations were led by Sweden’s largest solar plant to date, the 100 MW Hultsfred solar farm, and the 64 MW Ax-el solar park. Last year also saw developer Svea Solar announce plans to build eight new solar parks in Sweden with a total capacity of approximately 500 MW.

Jankell said the market is experiencing a shift to more large-scale solar, often combined with large-scale battery installations, but added that challenges remain in high costs or long waiting times for grid connections. He recommended Sweden adopt proposed changes to permitting procedures to make them quicker and more predictable.

The residential battery market is also broadening, with preliminary figures from the Swedish Tax Agency showing around 75,000 private individuals received a green reduction for battery installations in 2025, a 34% increase on the previous year.

Jankell suggested that Sweden’s solar market could be supported further by abolishing energy tax for all electricity that is produced and consumed behind the same meter and implementing proper power-tariffs which reflectively reward the ability of solar and battery installations to help the grid. He also recommended proposed proper revenue frames for Swedish grid companies that reward flexibility, and not only grid expansion.

Jankell told pv magazine more solar is likely to be installed this year than in 2025. “Given the implementation of solar demands in the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, new permitting processes on the way, and a general deflation of PV and battery prices, we predict that 2025 is the bottom of the installation curve,” he said.

CHN Energy, via its subsidiary Guohua Energy Investment, is constructing a solar project above a tea plantation in southwestern China, with the first 32 MW now connected to the grid. 

China's state-owned CHN Energy has switched on the first 32 MW of an agrivoltaic project constructed among tea terraces.

Located at the Mengsheng Farm in Cangyuan County within the Yunnan province of southwestern China, the project spans an over 666,000 m2 area across a tea plantation. The solar arrays are mounted uniformly at a height of 2.5 meters, allowing mechanized farming to continue underneath.

Construction began in August, with Guohua Energy Investment, a subsidiary of CHN Energy, leading investment and development. Once fully operational, the solar project is expected to feed back approximately 85,000 TWh of energy annually to the local power grid.

A statement on CHN Energy’s website says the integrated solar-plus-tea plantation model creates a positive micro-cycle system in which the solar panels provide moderate shade that helps improve tea quality, while maintenance of the tea plantation offers environmental protection for the solar array.

The statement adds that the project is also increasing local residents income through land lease payments, direct employment opportunities and skills training.

Wood Mackenzie highlights a groundbreaking 5.2 GW solar-plus-storage project in the UAE capable of delivering 1 GW of continuous baseload power, signaling a potential shift in renewable energy deployment despite high costs. The report also forecasts strong global solar growth through 2030, including the rise of residential “balcony solar” in the U.S. and expanded solar shares in Asia Pacific and the U.S.

Wood Mackenzie has said it that a massive solar-plus-storage project currently under construction in the UAE will “redefine baseload power.”

The prediction is one of three Wood Mackenzie has published as part of its “Global solar: Key things to look for in 2026” report.

The 5.2 GW solar plus 19 GWh battery energy storage project, under development by Masdar and Emirates Water and Electricity Company (EWEC), which broke ground in October, is the world’s first first gigawatt-scale renewable project engineered to deliver 1 GW of continuous, around-the-clock baseload power.

Michelle Davis, global head of solar for Wood Mackenzie, said the project represents a structural shift in hybrid project development in the region.

Davis noted that while the project is currently too expensive to replicate broadly, at roughly six times the cost of a new gas-fired combined-cycle gas turbine plant, successful project execution and continued cost declines could redefine baseload power.

“Despite the challenging events of 2025, solar market fundamentals and demand will remain strong in 2026, especially as the global economy continues to electrify,” Davis concluded.

The report also forecasts solar to play a major role in meeting the electricity load growth anticipated over the next decade in several regions of the globe.

Annual solar generation, including distributed solar, is expected to grow by 232 GWh, of 65%, in the U.S. between 2026 and 2030, according to Wood Mackenzie’s analysis. This will bring solar closer to gas, which makes up the largest share of electricity generation in the U.S., which is expected to grow by 340 GWh, or 21%, over the next four years.

In the Asia Pacific, solar made up 11% of the power generation mix in 2025 and is forecast to grow to 17% by 2030. Wood Mackenzie expects solar, wind and storage to make up a third of the power generation mix in the region by the end of the decade, having accounted for less than 10% in 2020. The analysis say new power capacity in the region is overwhelmingly directed towards solar due to price competitiveness.

Wood Mackenzie’s final prediction for 2026 is that balcony solar, or plug-in-solar, will begin to take a foothold in the US this year, while continuing its market penetration in Europe.

The market research company explains that prior to early 2025, there was no market for balcony solar in the U.S.. Utah became the first state to enable residential customers to utilize portable solar generation devices that produce up to 1.2 kW of power without the need for a utility interconnection agreement last March, with more than a dozen states introducing similar legislation since.

Wood Mackenzie expects this number to continue growing but also warned that key challenges lie in fragmented electrical standards, lower voltage in U.S. homes, and a larger share of single-family homes without balconies.

EU solar generation increased by over 20% for the fourth year running in 2025, with its share in the energy mix surpassing coal and hydro. For the first time in history, solar and wind generated more energy in the EU than fossil fuels.

Solar generated a record 369 TWh of energy across the EU in 2025, according to the European Electricity Review published by energy think tank Ember.

The result is an increase of 62 TWh on 2024 and more than doubles the 145 TWh generated in 2020. Ember says solar energy has grown at an average annual growth in generation of 21% over the past five years, a rate far beyond any other energy source.

This growth trajectory, buoyed by an added 65.1 GW of solar in the EU last year, led solar to generate a record 13% of the bloc's power in 2025, moving ahead of coal and hydro. Every EU country saw growth in solar generation increase year-on-year last year, led by Hungary with a 28% contribution to its power mix. In Cyprus, Greece, Spain and the Netherlands, solar’s share in the electricity mix was also over 20%. 

For the first time in history, solar and wind energy generated more EU electricity than fossil fuels in 2025, together responsible for a record 30% of EU power ahead of fossil fuels’ 29%. Solar and wind generated more electricity than all fossil sources in 14 of the EU’s 27 member states.

Report author Beatrice Petrovich said the milestone shows just how rapidly the EU is moving towards a power system backed by wind and solar. “As fossil fuel dependencies feed instability on the global stage, the stakes of transitioning to clean energy are clearer than ever,” Petrovich said.

In 2025, 19 EU countries recorded at least one hour when wind and solar combined accounted for over 70% of the country's hourly power generation, compared to only two countries in 2020. Ember found wind and solar supplied more than half of electricity generation during at least one third of all hours in Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. 

Ember’s report adds that all renewable sources, comprising solar, wind, hydro, bioenergy and other renewables, generated a total 1,331 TWh of energy in the EU last year for a 47.7% share of the total mix, 0.2% down on the year prior. The report says the share remained stable as the weather conditions that caused a drop in wind and hydro output boosted solar generation.

While gas generation rose by 8% compared to 2024, pushing the EU power sector’s gas import bill up to €32 billion, coal power fell to a historic low of 9.2%, with 19 EU countries now generating less than 5% of their energy from coal.

As solar and wind energy becomes the backbone of Europe’s power system, Ember’s report says electricity storage, together with grid enhancements and demand flexibility, will be crucial to put increasingly abundant renewable power to use and displace imported fossil power.

Among a series of recommendations listed in the report is removing barriers to battery deployment in national legislation, EU member states collaboration on permitting for key cross-border power lines, supporting investment in heat pumps and other electric technologies, introducing policy for electrifying transport, heating, and industry via the forthcoming Electrification Action Plan and delivering legislation to ban Russian gap and LNG imports by 2027.

A research team from Osaka Metropolitan University have developed a donor-acceptor-donor molecule that can spontaneously self-assemble into nanoscale structures and offer a more stable route to built-in p/n heterojunctions in organic solar cells.

Scientists from Osaka Metropolitan University have developed a molecular architecture offering a new design strategy toward producing more efficient organic thin-film solar cells.

Their donor-acceptor-donor (DAD) molecule, known as TISQ, integrates a squaraine-based p-type segment and a naphthalene diimide n-type segment within a single molecule. It is capable of naturally forming p/n junctions, otherwise known as the interface between p-type and n-type semiconductors.

The two segments link via amide groups that promote hydrogen bonding, meaning TISQ can spontaneously self-assemble into distinct nanoscale structures, which the scientists believe could offer a more stable route to built-in p/n heterojunctions.

Takeshi Maeda, Associate Professor at the university's Graduate School of Engineering and lead author of the study, explained that depending on the solvent, TISQ can spontaneously organize into nanoparticle-like J-type or nanofiber-like H-type aggregates.

The university’s news release explains polar solvents cause TISQ to form nanoparticle-like J-type aggregates through a cooperative nucleation–elongation process, while low-polarity solvents see it assemble into fibrous H-type aggregates via an isodesmic mechanism. “Both show different electronic behaviors, especially in how efficiently they transport charges when light hits them,” Maeda said.

The team’s research fabricated organic thin-film solar cells incorporating TISQ as a single-component photoactive material in a test of device applicability. The molecule was shown to form nanoscale p/n heterojunctions through self-assembly, which the scientists say highlights the feasibility of molecular designs that autonomously organize into functional electronic structures.

With the power conversion efficiency of the fabricated cells remaining low, the team acknowledged further research is required before it is practically applied. Nevertheless, they concluded that their findings demonstrate how differences in self-assembled nanoscale p/n heterojunction structures directly influence the photocurrent response in a single-component system.

“Our focus is on developing molecular design strategies that use self-assembly to connect nanoscale p/n heterojunction structures with photoelectronic responses in single-component organic systems,” Maeda said. “By deepening this structure–function understanding, we aim to broaden the design space of organic thin-film solar cells and related optoelectronic materials.”

The new molecule is described in the research paper “Solvent-Controlled Supramolecular Polymerization and Morphology-Depended Photoconductivity Modulation in a Squaraine-Naphthalene Diimide-Squaraine Bulk p/n Heterojunction,” available in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

A report from McKinsey and Company says the relative ease of building out solar projects means the U.S and Europe are likely to meet their end-of-decade deployment targets, despite current pipeline gaps of around 205 GW and 181 GW.

The US and Europe are likely to meet their 2030 solar targets despite current project pipelines being smaller than their end-of-decade targets, according to a report from global management consulting firm McKinsey and Company.

McKinsey’s “Tracking the energy transition: where are we now?” report analyzes the pathway of solar, wind and battery energy storage system (BESS) technologies towards the 2030 deployment targets set by China, the United States and the EU-27, Norway, Switzerland and the UK in Europe.

It says the US is currently around 254 GW away from its 2030 target while Europe is around 275 GW away. In contrast, China has already more than doubled its 2030 target.

Despite the US and Europe currently lacking enough announced capacity to meet their 2030s targets, by around 205 GW and 181 GW respectively, McKinsey's analysis says they are still likely to find this additional capacity and reach their end-of-decade thresholds thanks to the ease of building out solar.

“While it is easier to track project build-out for other clean energy technologies, data visibility for solar is more limited due to individual household use and ease of build-out,” McKinsey’s report explains. “For example, a consumer can install household solar in two months. This means that the announced capacity may be underestimated in this analysis.”

Diego Hernandez Diaz, a partner at McKinsey, told pv magazine that while core markets will continue their build out, further demand growth will also occur in less saturated core markets such as Poland. “The advantage of some of these elements is that the more nascent markets can have a better economic trade off and can be built in an economically pragmatic way,” he explained.

The report does acknowledge that this growth trajectory is not guaranteed, citing supply chain risks, tariffs, shifting policy focus and growing political uncertainty as factors that can slow down progress. Hernandez Diaz added there will likely be an effect from shifting regulation across the board.

“Perhaps more importantly, however, is that beyond any regulation, what we continue to see is that if the underlying economics work, then deployment accelerates,” he stated. “All major geographies covered in the report have the underlying fundamentals to support accretive deployment of further renewable energy sources.”

The report also notes that the battery energy storage system (BESS) pipeline is growing rapidly across China, the US and Europe, but remains behind what is needed to meet 2030 targets. McKinsey estimates around an additional 123 GW is required in China, 154 GW in the US and 221 GW in Europe.

The analysts says BESS remains the dominant question mark but can be sited, permitted, constructed, and interconnected far faster than technologies such as nuclear or gas with carbon, capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) contributing to its rapid growth in recent years.

The report attributes the rapid acceleration of BESS installation to a positive business case for both large-scale operators and households when paired with solar. “Load balancing is also becoming a popular source of revenue for battery operators,” the report adds. “Planning and integrating BESS with renewable rollout is critical if 2030 net-zero targets are to be met.”

Austrian engineering group Andritz has signed a deal to supply the pump turbine units for a 500 MW pumped storage plant in South Korea, the country’s first new pumped storage project in over a decade.

From ESS News

Austrian technology group Andritz has been selected by South Korean industrial company Doosan Enerbility to supply its turbine units for the Yeongdong pumped storage plant.

The 500 MW Yeongdong project, to be built in South Korea’s southwestern province of Chungcheong, is a collaboration between Doosan Enerbility and the country’s largest electric power company, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP). It marks the first large-scale pumped storage project initiated by KHNP since 2011.

According to local press reports, a groundbreaking ceremony for the project took place last April. At the time, it was announced the plant would be built on a 1.18 million square meter site, with project costs in excess of KRW 503 billion ($343 million).

Andritz will be responsible for the design of two pump turbine units, motor-generators and related auxiliaries and supply of key components of the pump turbines and motor-generators, as well as it digital control system, turbine governors and protection systems. The company will also provide installation supervision and commission services.

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