SolarPower Europe at Intersolar 2023

The biggest solar event of the year, Intersolar Europe, took place from 12 to 16 June in Munich. A whopping 105,000 visitors attended throughout the week for conference events, and to explore the exhibition.

An energised SolarPower Europe delegation from Brussels joined the buzzing solar sector in Munich last week for a number of exciting events, activities and report launches.

Kicking off the conference, our CEO Walburga Hemetsberger gave her opening words, followed by a solar myth-busting session addressing questions of solar production, deployment, and generation.

"We need to go much faster. There are still some solar myths we need to bust, and politicians need to be much more bold!"

This was followed by the highly-anticipated launch of our Global Market Outlook for Solar Power 2023-2027. The report revealed that the world installed 239 GW of solar power in 2022, with 118 GW in the rooftop segment. This means 36 million more homes are now powered by solar across the globe.

During the launch session, our Executive Advisor and Director of Market Intelligence, Michael Schmela, presented the latest figures. The report this year has a spotlight focus on Southeast Asia; during our launch, we heard from Tetchi Capellan, Head of the Asian Photovoltaic Industry Association, about the booming solar sector in Asia.

Read the Global Market Outlook 2023-2027

Download here

Later, we launched another key report: our Agrisolar Best Practice Guidelines Version 2. During the Agrisolar session, our Land Use and Permitting Workstream Chair, Eva Vandest, and Vice Chair, Stephan Schindele, presented the report, and facilitated an insightful discussion on the role of this technology in tackling the many crises our planet is facing.

Day 2 was one of the busiest days of the week, with the conference still ongoing, and the exhibition kicking off. Our booth was open for business, where passers-by could pick up a copy of our new Global Market Outlook, and our team met with many members, colleagues, and new solar friends!

On the conference side, this day was all about manufacturing! The European Solar PV Industry Alliance held its first annual forum, gathering some of the biggest players in EU solar manufacturing including Director General of DG GROW, Kerstin Jorna. This was a great opportunity to discuss the challenges of the sector, and what must be done to ensure a flourishing and competitive EU solar industry.

In the afternoon, our CEO Walburga Hemetsberger, and Policy Director, Dries Acke, accompanied Kerstin Jorna on a solar industry tour. We stopped by a number of our members’ booths to delve deeper into discussions and see some of their amazing technology first hand.

To end the day, we sat down for a discussion on inverters with six CEOs and Kerstin Jorna – stay tuned for the full recording coming soon!

Thursday was yet another fun-filled day. The conference had ended, but we continued to cover important topics in our range of side sessions. These included the EU Global Gateway session, EU Solar Skills Dialogues, ETIP PV sessions, and Global Associations Workshop.

We also took a tour round some of our members' booths, who were happy to get a photo with our #SolarSaves sign and support the campaign, bringing awareness to the positive benefits if solar for reducing energy costs and fighting climate change!