17.4 Installations development in Europe
The installed capacity of photovoltaic cells has increased by around 100 GW in recent years. In 2019, it was 130 GW. The average growth is 10 GW/year, its rate, as in the rest of the world, is increasing - in 2019 capacity increased by \( 13\% \). In Europe, 16.7 GW were installed, an increase of more than 100% compared to 8.2 GW at the end of 2018. The largest increases were recorded by Spain (4.7 GW), Germany (4 GW), the Netherlands (2.5 GW) and France (1.1 GW). This was influenced by the implementation and enforcement of the RES Directive (28/2009/EC) in 2009. Between 2007 and 2014, installations were concentrated in Spain. The second largest European photovoltaic market is Italy, where the total capacity of photovoltaic plants already exceeds 21 GW. Photovoltaics accounted for \( 92\% \) growth of new capacities in small-scale RES installations – Fig. 1 [1].