Mission Solar: Ready for lift off!

We have a stellar lineup of speakers including EU Commission Vice President and Green Deal Chief, Maros Sefcovic, MEP Maria Carvalho, and EU Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson. 

February has been a month of setting the scene for the discussions to come. At the beginning of the month we had the European Commission’s communication on Europe’s 2040 climate targets. These targets show promising commitment from the EU to reduce emissions, but we’re cautioning against any reliance on costly, time-intensive, and unproven low-carbon technologies. A fully renewable electrified energy system by 2040 is within reach and should be Europe’s clear focus.

Just yesterday, I had the pleasure of joining European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Executive Vice-President Maros Sefcovic at the Clean Energy Transition Dialogue on clean technologies. I highlighted that to continue Europe's solar success story, we must continue to grow solar deployment while reshoring solar manufacturing to Europe.

In the past month co-legislators of the European Union agreed on the final form of the Net-Zero Industry Act marking a crucial landmark in Europe’s clean industry story. It’s an essential piece of the industrial strategy puzzle, which will substantially improve off-take visibility for EU solar manufacturers at this critical time. However, we’ve been clear that more immediate measures are needed to support manufacturers in their time of need. Considering longer-term and structural solutions, this month we also published a paper on how our proposed Solar Manufacturing Facility would work to direct funding to European solar manufacturers.

Make sure to subscribe to our LinkedIn newsletter ‘Solar Manufacturing Matters’ to stay up to date with developments on European solar manufacturing and EU industrial policy.

The buzz around the 2024 EU elections is starting to grow. At SolarPower Europe, we launched our new season of Shine On Policycast which will be diving into our solar manifesto in the lead up to the EU elections. Watch or listen to the first episode of the season with our Head of Press and Policy Communications, Bethany Meban, and Policy Director Dries Acke, who talk about EU 2040 ambition, solar targets, industrial strategy and more.

Ready to discuss all this and more – and we look forward to continuing the mission into the evening at our SolarPower Summit Afterparty. Join the conversation on social media using #SolarPowerSummit and #MissionSolar. See you soon!