Under an ambitious scenario, EU electricity system annual operating costs could fall by €55bn (or 49 per cent) from 2025 to 2030, but even under current trends operating costs would still decline by €33bn (or 29 per cent).

The analysis comes from SolarPower Europe’s new report Solar+: An EU pathway to achieve renewable targets, price affordability, and energy security, which models the outcome of two scenarios. A business-as-usual Base Case scenario is compared to the Solar+ Scenario, which represents higher ambition towards the attainment of the 2030 EU energy and climate targets.

Both scenarios demonstrate the role of solar, electrification, and storage in delivering a more cost-effective energy system, with the Solar+ scenario underlining the potential of solar and storage to be deployed quickly and cost-effectively.

Walburga Hemetsberger, CEO of SolarPower Europe said: “An electricity system driven by renewables is fundamentally more cost-effective than relying on the volatile pricing and burning of fossil fuels. Investment in renewables, storage, and non-fossil flexibility pays off for years to come, while fossil fuel investments cost Europe its stability and independence.”

The analysis points out that when wind and solar, referred to as variable renewable energy sources (Variable RES), set the electricity price more often (19 per cent of hours vs 14 per cent in the Base Case) the prices are clearly lower.

Furthermore, flexibility reduces the downsides of variability. The analysis highlights that adequate flexibility deployment can curb daily price spreads (where electricity can be very cheap during abundant renewables hours, then quite expensive during high demand hours).

Importantly, the report identifies a sweet spot where consumers benefit from lower average prices, while preserving the business case for solar. In the Solar+ scenario, negative price hours are kept steady from 2025 to 2030, remaining under 500 hours per year, protecting investors in renewables. Simultaneously, the wholesale day-ahead electricity prices drop by more than 10 per cent, benefitting consumers.

Battery storage scales fast in both scenarios. Total operating EU battery storage capacity reaches 116GW / 267GWh by 2030 in the Base Case, and 171GW / 598GWh in the Solar+ scenario.

---