Europe’s Subsidy-free Transition – the road to grid parity

The European renewable energy landscape is undergoing a fascinating change. With almost all countries now having transitioned to competitive auctions, government subsidies play an increasingly less significant role in driving renewable energy deployment. Market parity is already a reality in some countries, zero-subsidy bids are materialising in auctions and subsidy-free development is becoming the new norm.

As a result, for the most part, the baton has now passed to the private sector to drive the next phase of the clean energy transition across Europe, which introduces increased merchant exposure but also provides immense opportunities. Private power purchase agreements (PPAs) have emerged as the principal price hedging tool for both project sponsors and private offtakers, with the latter role typically filled by corporates, traders or utilities.

Region-specific dynamics have resulted in different uptake among European countries. Until recently, the Nordics were dominating deal flow, with the UK slowly but steadily following next. Over the past 12 months, Spain and Italy have entered the PPA sphere and vigorously accelerated the volume of activity across the European market, while other countries are beginning to show promising dynamics. It is also exciting to observe how different types of corporate offtakers are entering the market, such as retailers, pharmaceuticals and the public sector, taking advantage of the roadmap set by the pioneering IT conglomerates.

In this report, we are excited to have partnered with inspiratia to shed light on the drivers, bottlenecks and prospects across Europe, lessons learned from countries at the vanguard of the transition, and to forecast the next wave of PPA trends.