Energy security: How innovation is driving Europe’s race for solar renaissance

Europe is attempting to shake off its dependence on Russian gas by ramping up its renewables industry, specifically solar power.

Solar is seen as crucial to Europe's energy security, climate goals, and jobs. Europe installed a record-breaking 41.4 gigawatts of photovoltaic power in 2022 -- a rise of 47% compared to 2021-- according to industry group SolarPower Europe.

But right now China dominates the solar industry.

Figures from the Paris-based International Energy Agency predict that up to 95% of the solar industry could be concentrated in China by 2025. 

Burghausen in Germany is the home of Wacker Chemicals, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of polysilicon -- the raw ingredient for solar panels.

"We're really what we call an energy-intensive industry," Tobias Brandis, President of Wacker Polysilicon told Euronews. "You just should imagine that here and at our second site in Saxony, we use about 0.7 to 0.8% of the German electricity demand, which is absolutely huge.

"For future investment, it would be of utmost importance to have a competitive level of energy, but to also have a predictable level of energy," he added.

While Wacker is one of Europe's leaders in polysilicon, the vast majority is produced elsewhere in China.

"China really took action there. They took this as one of the industries which is going to be very strategic and they very strategically invested into this industry," Tobias Brandis explained.

"Europe, and the same is actually true for the United States, just did not compete in speed, but also in respect of, let's say, production conditions."

As part of its broad strategy to address this, the EU has set up the Solar Alliance, bringing together businesses and stakeholders to increase production capacity,