German companies dominate European solar park operation market

A ranking compiled to identify the top 36 solar project operations and maintenance (O&M) companies in Europe has been dominated by German firms, which accounted for 14 of the businesses on the list.

Berlin-based monitoring provider Solytic came up with the figures, which identified Germany's Belectric as the continent's top O&M provider, with 2.79 GWp of capacity in its portfolio.

Compatriot businesses Enerparc (with 2,378 MW on its books), Juwi (2.53 GW) and Baywa re (1.9 GW) rounded out the top four with Norwegian company Scatec the top non-German provider on the list, with 1,898 MW under management. Baywa, however, has since disputed the figure attributed to it by Solytic, and told pv magazine it provided O&M services to 3.3 GWp of solar project capacity in Europe as of July 19.

French companies made the next biggest contribution to a Solytic list which did not identify any non-European O&M providers with more solar capacity than the 50 MW reportedly maintained by German player Suncycle. French companies, led by Neoen, which has 1.8 GW under management, supplied five of the top 36, followed by Italian and Spanish businesses, of which there were four each; three U.K. firms; two Dutch and Norwegian entities; and one representative each from Austria and Belgium.

In terms of solar portfolio scale, there were notable gaps between the capacities managed by Juwi and Baywa; between 12th-ranked Luxembourg-based firm Enovos‘ 1.2 GW and the 850 MW maintained by Italy's EF Solare Italia; and between the 100 MW operated by U.K. firm Natural Generation, in 35th place, and Suncycle.

This copy was amended on 20/07/21 to reflect the information provided by Baywa re.