EIB Survey Finds Europeans Favor Domestic Clean Technology Over Faster Imports

A November 5 survey by the European Investment Bank (EIB) found that 55% of Europeans favour developing a competitive domestic clean-technology industry, even if it takes longer, compared with 29% who prefer faster deployment using imported equipment.

Domestic manufacturing was the preferred approach across all 27 EU member states. The survey covered 23,000 respondents and measured public preferences, not willingness to pay more for European-made products.

The European Union imported €8 billion worth of solar panels in 2025, with China accounting for 98.6% of imports, according to Eurostat.

Import values fell 27.7% from the previous year, while volumes declined by just 4%, indicating a substantial reduction in average import prices. European solar manufacturers are competing with overseas suppliers in a market where imported equipment has become cheaper.

The European Commission’s Net-Zero Industry Act sets a target for EU manufacturing capacity to meet at least 40% of annual deployment needs for strategic net-zero technologies by 2030.

The legislation introduces measures to support domestic production and improve market access. Achieving the target depends on whether European manufacturers can attract investment and secure sufficient orders to expand production against established overseas suppliers.

European Clean Technology Manufacturers Face Import Competition

The European Commission’s 2026 industrial assessment estimates EU solar manufacturing capacity at approximately 12 gigawatts (GW) for modules and 2 GW for cells, with less than 1 GW for ingots and wafers.

Chinese solar modules were priced at roughly half the production costs faced by European manufacturers, according to the Commission’s assessment. The capacity figures also reveal limited European production of the components needed to manufacture finished panels.

Swiss manufacturer Meyer Burger entered insolvency proceedings affecting its German operations in 2025. Production ended at its Bitterfeld-Wolfen solar-cell factory, resulting in 331 job losses, after the company had already closed its module facility in Freiberg.

Eurofound’s restructuring records identified low-cost Chinese competition and unsuccessful financing negotiations among the factors behind the company’s difficulties.

French renewable-energy company Reden discontinued solar-module production at its 200-megawatt Roquefort-sur-Soulzon factory in July 2026.

The facility had been commissioned in December 2024 and subsequently received approximately €4.5 million in production-line upgrades. Reden attributed the closure to manufacturing costs and competition from Asian suppliers, ending production less than two years after commissioning.

EU battery-cell manufacturing capacity reached approximately 205 gigawatt-hours by the end of 2025, according to the European Commission, with more than 750 GWh in the development pipeline.

Approximately 233 GWh of proposed capacity had been cancelled or delayed. China supplied around €22 billion of the EU’s €28 billion in battery imports in 2024.

The figures show that Europe’s planned battery manufacturing expansion remains substantially larger than its established production capacity, with several proposed investments yet to proceed.

EU Financing Supports New Clean Technology Factories

The European Commission confirmed in November 2025 that five electric-vehicle battery-cell manufacturing projects had signed Innovation Fund grant agreements worth a combined €643 million.

The recipients include Automotive Cells Company’s European Production Take-off project in France, the NOVO One gigafactory in Sweden and a lithium-ion battery-cell project in Poland.

The agreements cover manufacturing investment, although the Commission has not published individual disbursement figures for all five projects.

European solar manufacturing projects have also secured signed grants. The Commission’s Innovation Fund register lists FuturaSun’s FENICE manufacturing project in Italy and the MOD4PV project in Spain, which targets annual production capacity of 1.5 gigawatts of heterojunction solar modules.

Both projects have signed grant agreements, but the register does not establish that their planned manufacturing capacity is fully operational.

A further round of manufacturing support advanced in March 2026, when 54 projects signed Innovation Fund grant agreements worth €2.7 billion. The programme covers several industrial technologies, including equipment and components used in renewable-energy production.

Funding is released against project milestones, with grants generally covering up to 60% of eligible costs. Manufacturers must finance the remaining expenditure through their own resources or other investors and lenders.

The Commission adopted a separate €1.5 billion Battery Booster Facility in June 2026 to provide interest-free loans to battery-cell manufacturers during production ramp-up.

The programme targets factories moving towards commercial operation rather than financing entirely new projects from their earliest development stages.

The published facility documentation establishes the financing framework but does not identify completed loan awards or disbursements to individual manufacturers.

European Equipment Costs Affect Renewable Energy Investment

A September 2025 study by Fraunhofer ISE and SolarPower Europe estimated that utility-scale solar systems using European-made modules cost €0.608 per watt, compared with €0.500 per watt for systems using Chinese modules.

For the configurations assessed, the difference raised the estimated levelised cost of electricity by €0.0075 per kilowatt-hour, or 14.5%. The findings concern the solar equipment and project assumptions used in the study, rather than prices offered by every European manufacturer.

The International Energy Agency’s Energy Technology Perspectives 2026 identified energy and labour expenses as accounting for 65% of the manufacturing cost difference between Europe and China in upstream solar production.

The agency estimated that manufacturing modules in Europe using imported North African wafers would cost almost 20% less than producing the entire supply chain within the EU. For battery cells, differences in manufacturing efficiency accounted for more than 40% of the production cost gap.

German developer MaxSolar signed a September 2026 agreement with China’s Trinasolar for 74 megawatts of solar modules across five projects, with deliveries scheduled for the fourth quarter.

In Greece, FARIA RENEWABLES contracted LONGi to supply 81.66 megawatts of modules for two developments in Thessaly. Neither agreement disclosed equipment prices or competing bids from European suppliers, leaving the financial basis of the procurement decisions undisclosed.

European renewable-energy auctions are introducing additional conditions for equipment procurement. Under the Net-Zero Industry Act, member states must apply non-price criteria to at least 30% of annual auction volumes or 6 gigawatts annually.

The provisions took effect on December 30, 2025, with the European Commission issuing implementation guidance in July 2026. Developers participating in affected auctions must meet the relevant requirements on supply-chain resilience and other qualifying criteria alongside their financial bids.

Europe’s Clean Technology Industry Faces New Investment Decisions

French solar manufacturer HoloSolis secured selection for European Innovation Fund support in October 2026 for its planned 5-gigawatt factory in Hambach.

The company has raised more than €220 million in initial financing, including €200 million in French tax-credit support. Module production is scheduled for 2027, followed by solar-cell manufacturing in 2028, with full capacity targeted for 2030. The amount of the latest EU grant has not been disclosed.

French battery manufacturer Verkor is expanding production at its Dunkirk gigafactory. In June 2026, the company confirmed the deployment of digital manufacturing systems to support production ramp-up.

Its investment programme targets completion in 2027, although the announcement did not specify the volume of battery cells expected to be produced by that date.

The European Commission’s proposed Industrial Accelerator Act, published in March 2026, would introduce European-origin requirements for selected clean technologies benefiting from public support.

The proposed measures cover batteries, solar equipment and wind technology. Negotiations between EU institutions will determine the final requirements and when they take effect.

The next investment decisions will concern production contracts and the financing needed to complete planned factories. HoloSolis has a commissioning timetable but has yet to demonstrate commercial production at its proposed scale.

Verkor’s expansion faces its own production targets. EU industrial-policy negotiations will determine whether European-origin requirements provide manufacturers with additional access to publicly supported projects. The commercial test remains whether these factories can secure enough orders to operate competitively.