Industrial Policy for Solar PV: National Implementation and Progress Report

This report assesses how EU Member States are beginning to implement the Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA) resilience criterion for solar photovoltaics (PV), providing an early view of national approaches, emerging design choices, and implications for Europe’s manufacturing base.

Solar PV is now a core pillar of the EU energy system, with over 400 GW installed, accounting for 13% of average annual EU electricity generation. However, deployment remains heavily dependent on third-country manufacturing. The NZIA seeks to address this by linking solar deployment more closely to economic resilience and supply chain diversification.

The report shows that Member States are either piloting resilience criteria or preparing future auctions that will align more fully with the NZIA.

• Italy demonstrated that the resilience criterion can be implemented at scale with its transitional FER-X auction, awarding 1.1 GW of solar PV capacity. In addition, there are several Italian support schemes in place that require EU-made components upfront. This demonstrates an early ‘Made in EU’ approach through the use of an eligibility criterion.

• Austria introduced a 20% ‘Made in Europe’ bonus and encouraged residential PV and battery storage projects to use European-made PV components.

• France has started implementing NZIA resilience criteria for ground-mounted auctions by requiring key PV components to come from diversified supply chains.

• Ireland is implementing the NZIA through RESS 6 auctions under Article 26, allocating 5% of non-price scoring to resilience criteria.

• Lithuania is implementing Article 28 of the NZIA by using higher subsidies to encourage private households to choose high-efficiency PV modules and diversified supply chains.

• Spain is implementing the NZIA mainly through award-based resilience criteria in public support schemes under Article 28.

Overall, the report reveals that Member States are progressing slowly with NZIA implementation and are using different, diverging approaches. While it is too early to assess impacts, it is already apparent that success will require more consistent and balanced implementation so that industrial policy can leverage the potential of the full EU Single Market. This is also important for the upcoming Industrial Accelerator Act, currently in negotiation, which is expected to strengthen the NZIA framework.

SolarPower Europe will continue monitoring developments as more national examples emerge, demonstrating the effectiveness, complexities, and costs of these new policy frameworks.