Solar and storage industry leaders from China and Europe gathered in Germany this week to promote cross-border partnerships, launch a bilateral storage cooperation platform and coordinate strategies for scaling PV and battery deployment amid rising demand, grid pressure and increasing market competition.
China and European solar and storage leaders met this week in Dusseldorf, Germany, to call for deeper cross-border cooperation as both regions face record PV volumes, rising storage demand and complex market dynamics.
Speakers at the China-EU Solar & Energy Storage Industries Dialogue 2025 highlighted the growing interdependence between China’s production scale and European strengths in system integration and finance.
The cross-border industry forum – organized by EUPD Group and the China Photovoltaic Industry Association (CPIA) – also marked the launch of a new bilateral warehousing cooperation platform, providing warehousing, logistics, recycling and technical support to Chinese companies operating in Europe, as well as European players looking for opportunities in China.
Ru Jialin, deputy director of international affairs at the CPIA, noted in an opening statement that China has entered the “terawatt era,” with cumulative PV installations exceeding 1,126 GW and “new type storage” – defined as energy storage technologies other than pumped hydro – approaching 100 GW. The forum aimed to respond to that momentum by aligning Chinese and European players in scaling up deployment and addressing the market, network and financing challenges of terawatt-level growth.
“We need cooperation,” Ru said pv magazine. “You can see that good companies have been created in this sector in recent decades through good cooperation, both in Europe and in China.”
Sonia Dunlop, CEO of the Global Solar Council, echoed these sentiments, noting that the solar-plus-storage sector is now a “half-trillion-dollar industry,” shaped by a decade of cooperation between China and Europe, which has driven PV costs down sharply. She warned that markets from California to Spain are already reaching negative prices without sufficient storage and urged governments to open flexibility and ancillary services markets for batteries to meet the Global Solar Council’s global target of 1.5 TW by 2030.
Daniel Fuchs, Chief Customer Officer at EUPD Group, said pv magazine that this kind of cooperation is essential to balance supply and demand and navigate Europe’s diverse markets. “Our industry is shifting to an offering strictly dominated by Chinese manufacturers,” he said. “With the event we want to connect the dots between Europe and China.”
This focus on collaboration paved the way for a deeper look at regional storage trends. Europe is expected to play a central role in the expansion of PV-plus-storage solutions, with growing storage adoption supporting the growth of rooftop solar and system integration.
Saif Islam, a senior consultant at the EUPD Group, predicted that Germany’s energy storage capacity could reach 29 GWh by 2029, powered by utility-scale systems, while Italy and the United Kingdom are expected to expand to 12 GWh and 16 GWh respectively. Storage is increasingly the key driver for rooftop PV adoption, with installers integrating EV chargers, smart home systems and heat pumps in addition to solar.
Fuchs emphasized the theme of collaboration, describing the event as a demonstration of how cross-border partnerships can deliver shared benefits. “Cooperation will create win-win-win situations,” he said. “This forum is about bridging markets and building connections between Europe and China.”
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