Market & power data — Europe
Solar project profitability depends on more than irradiation and installation costs. Market risks — price cannibalization, negative-price hours, curtailment — and grid constraints — connection lead times, congestion — increasingly weigh on producer revenues. This page centralizes the key data to assess these risks across Europe: capture price, negative prices, curtailment, PPA pricing and grid connection timelines.
Sources: ENTSO-E, ACER, Ember Climate, SolarPower Europe — Data 2023-2025
Why market data matters for solar investors
As solar capacity grows, the "cannibalization effect" becomes structural: the more solar feeds the grid at midday, the lower electricity prices fall during peak production hours. In Germany, solar capture prices have dropped to 60–70 % of the baseload average during high-irradiation months. In Spain, negative midday prices now occur regularly from April to September.
This dynamic directly impacts project revenue assumptions: a project with an LCOE of 35 €/MWh may appear profitable against a 55 €/MWh baseload price — but if the actual capture price received is only 38 €/MWh, the margin is razor-thin. Understanding market dynamics is now essential for bankability analysis and risk assessment.
Data topics
Negative prices
Hours of negative day-ahead prices per country and year. Germany recorded over 400 negative-price hours in 2024 — a record driven by midday solar surpluses. Impact on merchant revenues and capture price.
→ View data (FR)
Capture price ratio
Average price received by solar vs baseload. Capture ratios range from 60 % (Germany, high solar pen.) to 85 % (France, lower saturation). Correlation with PV penetration rate and storage deployment.
Planned: next update
Curtailment
Solar curtailment volumes (GWh lost) by country. Causes include grid congestion, surplus generation, and dispatch orders. In 2024, curtailment reached 2–6 % of solar output in high-penetration markets. Compensation rules vary by country.
Planned: next update
PPA solar prices
Corporate and utility PPA prices by country and contract duration. Benchmark data from LevelTen and Pexapark. European solar PPAs ranged from 30 to 75 €/MWh in 2024, with contract volumes up 44 % year-on-year.
Planned: next update
Grid connection lead times
Average connection timelines by country and capacity range. Grid queues in Italy and Spain exceed 200 GW of pending requests. Ongoing reforms: EU Grid Action Plan (2025), national permitting acceleration measures.
Planned: next update
Methodology
Units: Capture price in €/MWh, negative prices in hours/year and % of time, curtailment in GWh/year and % of solar output, PPA in €/MWh (fixed or indexed), grid connection lead time in months.
Primary sources: ENTSO-E Transparency Platform, ACER Market Monitoring Report, Ember Climate, LevelTen Energy PPA Index, Pexapark PPA Tracker, SolarPower Europe Grid Report, national TSO reports (RTE, BNetzA, REE, Terna, TenneT).
Coverage: 10 European countries (FR, DE, ES, IT, NL, BE, PT, PL, AT, GR). Hourly data (day-ahead) for prices, annual data for curtailment and grid connection.
Limitations: Curtailment data is often incomplete or self-reported by TSOs. PPA prices are aggregated indices (not individual contract prices). Grid connection timelines vary significantly by capacity, voltage level, and region.
Update schedule: Data revised quarterly (Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4). Last update date indicated on each data page.
Last updated: 2026-03