In 2018 the European Union installed 8 gigawatts of solar capacity. This is a whopping 36% increase over 2017, that year they only installed 5.9 gigawatts. Solar installations from Europe as a whole and neighboring countries including Belarus, Norway, Russia, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, and others have increased by approximately 20% in 2018, with 11 GW of new capacity having been installed.
The data backing this statement up was compiled by SolarPower Europe, they used national government data as well as other national solar associations. The European nation that added the largest solar capacity was Germany. During 2018 they added a total of 2.96 gigawatts of solar capacity. In second place was Turkey, despite that it installed 37% less than it had in 2017. They were still able to add 1.64 gigawatts of new solar capacity. The decline may have been caused by some of the countries financial turmoil.
Walburga Hemetsberger the CEO of SolarPower Europe said the following “It is good to see Europe fully embracing solar again. With solar being the most popular energy source among EU citizens, the most versatile and often also the lowest cost power generation source, and with cost reductions continuing, we are only at the beginning of a long upward trend for solar in Europe.” If you would like to read the original article you may do so by heading over to https://cleantechnica.com/2019/02/21/european-union-solar-capacity-grows-by-36-in-2018/