Enerparc, which has built around 500 solar projects totalling 5.5 GW and employs just under 700 people, filed for insolvency at the Hamburg local court this week. A court appointed restructuring specialist Stefan Denkhaus as provisional administrator on 7 September.
The filing comes six months after Enerparc announced a EUR 1 billion financing package for solar and battery growth. It covers the parent company only, and the project companies keep running.
Nothing collapsed in the German solar market this summer. What moved is the price of money set against a captured power price that solar itself keeps pushing down at midday. (pv magazine, Renewables Now)
Energy Transition
EU solar grew 1.9% in the first half, and fear did most of the work
The EU installed at least 33.8 GW of solar between January and June, up from 33.2 GW a year earlier, according to SolarPower Europe's mid-year update. That beats the contraction the same body forecast in December, and still leaves the bloc off its 2030 trajectory.
The association credits heatwaves and supply anxiety rather than policy, with France cutting rooftop incentives and Germany weighing the same for 2027. Solar was the EU's largest electricity source in June, at 25% of generation. (SolarPower Europe)
Germany rewrites the offshore auction nobody bid in
The Federal Cabinet adopted an amendment to the Offshore Wind Energy Act on 2 September, sending it to the Bundestag for entry into force on 1 January 2027. Tenders keep the uncapped dynamic bidding round, but a contract for difference auction now follows if nothing is awarded, and the standard operating life rises from 25 to 35 years.
Behind that: an August 2025 tender that drew no bids, and a 2026 round suspended outright. Berlin's 70 GW target for 2045 now rests on whether a revenue floor brings developers back. (Offshore Wind)
Europe's battery market is forecast to grow 78% this year
EUPD Research puts European storage additions at 57 GWh in 2026, up from 32 GWh in 2025, led by Germany, Bulgaria, Italy, the UK, and Spain. Bulgaria is the surprise there: a country of under seven million is now a top-five European storage market, on grid-scale projects rather than rooftops.
Residential storage still grows, from 11 GWh to 15 GWh, but the centre of gravity has moved front of meter. BYD and Huawei alone hold more than 30% of residential demand. (ESS News)
Qualitas Energy buys Macquarie's 5.8 GW European solar platform
Qualitas Energy has signed to acquire Cero Generation, the producer Macquarie built in 2021, covering 5.8 GW across the UK, Italy, and Spain. Roughly 2 GW is operational, under construction, or ready to build, with a 3.8 GW pipeline behind it and the London, Milan, and Madrid teams moving across.
Infrastructure funds that assembled European renewables portfolios at low rates are now selling to specialists who can carry the build risk. (PV Tech)
Climate Tech
A Seville company automates what control rooms still do by hand
Green Eagle Solutions has taken a majority investment from Copilot Capital. Its ARSOS platform handles fault response, curtailment, and dispatch across 90 GW of wind, solar, hydro, and battery assets, running more than a million automated actions a month and over 10,000 turbines autonomously.
Two software engineers founded it in 2012. It sells against the condition the storage numbers above describe: portfolios too fast and too mixed for humans on shift. (Tech.eu)
UK pension money reaches early-stage climate tech
Clean Growth Fund II reached GBP 81.5 million at second close against a GBP 150 million target, backing UK climate tech from seed to Series A. Border to Coast Pensions Partnership anchored it with GBP 22.5 million, and Strathclyde Pension Fund added GBP 10 million to take its commitment to GBP 30 million.
Local government pension pools writing into pre-Series A hardware is new, and follows a visible exit: heat network developer Rendesco raised GBP 100 million from Pioneer Point Partners in May. (Tech.eu)
France goes looking for someone who can recycle thin-film panels
Soren, the eco-organisation handling end-of-life solar modules in France under extended producer responsibility, has opened a call for expressions of interest in processing cadmium telluride and CIGS modules domestically. Proposals close on 21 October.
France has no route for these chemistries today, and the volumes are close: an estimated 770 tonnes in 2027, 2,660 by 2030, and 15,000 by 2037. A 1,300 tonne batch of CdTe modules from German manufacturer Calyxo is queued for whoever wins. (pv magazine)
Policy & Regulation
Ofgem says Britain's connections reform was mishandled
In its end-scheme assessment of the grid operator's 2025/26 performance, Ofgem found NESO neither delivered connections reform nor made sufficient progress towards it, citing missed deadlines, unclear prioritisation, inaccurate offers, and inconsistent engagement with developers. NESO fully achieved three of its eight performance objectives.
This is the reform meant to clear a queue holding more than 500 GW of European wind alone. Ofgem is examining why projects with protected 2026 and 2027 connection dates will not get them before deciding what to do. (Solar Power Portal, Ofgem)
Saxony-Anhalt hands the AfD 43.8%, and developers start pricing it
The AfD more than doubled its 2021 result to take 43.8% in Saxony-Anhalt, while the CDU fell from 37.1% to 17.2%. Energy law is federal, so the Renewable Energy Act and the coal exit are not directly at risk.
State governments still control permitting speed, litigation posture, and regional planning. The German Renewable Energy Federation reads it as a capital problem rather than a legislative one: whoever slows the industry makes investment harder to secure, and eastern Germany holds much of the onshore wind pipeline. (Clean Energy Wire)
Science
The cost of the heat is showing up in the harvest
EU cereal production is set to fall 9% year on year and maize 13%, with France alone down almost 8 megatonnes, according to the Joint Research Centre analysis Carbon Brief charted this week. The June heatwave accounts for an estimated EUR 2 to 2.3 billion of grain losses, EUR 891 million of it French.
Slovakia and Austria take the largest yield hits, above a tonne per hectare. The summer that set the solar records above also wrote this bill. (Carbon Brief)
One to Watch
North Macedonia approved 2.2 GW of storage, and now has to build it
The energy ministry cleared 96 storage facilities in its 2026 construction plan, 77 tied to solar plants and 19 standalone, totalling 2.2 GW and 4.9 GWh, alongside 59 solar projects above 3 GW. Solar Macedonia expects permitting to speed up for projects that already hold grid approval, with construction starting in 2027.
Watch whether that date holds. A country of two million consenting nearly 5 GWh of storage tests whether the Western Balkans can move faster than the EU permitting regimes their neighbours work under. (ESS News)