For a third year in a row Bulgaria has maintained its position as a GW-scale PV market
On 11 December 2025, SolarPower Europe – the European association of the PV industry released its annual flagship report, the „EU Solar Market Outlook 2025-2030“. This year’s issue brings mixed news: while the EU has surpassed its 2025 target of 400 GW installed solar capacity, the solar market has contracted by 0.7%, putting the 2030 targets in question.
The boom years of EU solar in the 2020s are over. With a 0.7% contraction from 65.6 GW installed in 2024, to 65.1 GW installed in 2025, this year marks the first year since 2016 where the EU has installed less solar than the year before. The news of the decline is softened by the mid-decade milestone achieved. In the 2022 EU Solar Strategy, the EU set a goal of 400 GW installed in the bloc by 2025. Europe made it across this finish line, with an estimated 406 GW total solar installed across the EU by the end of the year.
Insights from the report
- EU installed 65.1 GW of new solar PV in 2025, a slight 0.7% contraction from the 65.6 GW installed in 2024. This marks the first year-on-year annual decline since 2016, with two more years of decline to follow. The market is set to return to 2025 values only by the end of the decade.
- SolarPower Europe’s annual EU Solar Market Outlook reveals that, despite the market decline, the EU has reached its 2025 solar installation target of 400 GW, with a total fleet of 406 GW.
- However, the EU solar target of 750 GW by 2030 is now slipping out of reach. In our most-likely scenario, SolarPower Europe projects that total EU solar will only reach 718 GW.
- The slowdown is partially attributed to an ailing residential solar segment, which was responsible for 28% of newly installed EU capacity in 2023, but only 14% in 2025.
- To achieve EU solar goals, policymakers must redefine energy security around renewable electrification, adopt a comprehensive energy system flexibility strategy, implement permitting procedures, and boost the rooftop solar market.
What happens in Bulgaria
In 2025 Bulgaria has maintained its position as a GW-scale PV market. Following the record-breaking years of 2023 and 2024, many anticipated a slowdown; however, despite a slight deceleration in new project initiations, several large-scale PV installations were commissioned in 2025. The market remains primarily dominated by utility-scale projects, with approximately 90% of total installed capacity concentrated in large ground-mounted installations. Nevertheless, the C&I segment continues to expand too, driven by the pursuit of long-term price stability and greater energy autonomy.
As of September 2025, approximately 600 MW / 1,500 MWh of BESS have been added to the system and this capacity is expected to grow to over 12 GWh by mid-2026. According to the national electricity system operator, grid-connection contracts for 7.5 GW / 23 GWh have already been signed. Most of these planned investments have applied for funding under the NRRP programmes and should start operation by the end of March 2026.
>> Read the full report at solarpowereurope.org
