From ‘crazy vision’ to 698 GW: How a bold solar forecast became too conservative

When we launched the “300 GW/a PV initiative” in September 2012—calling for 300 GW of annual global PV installations by 2025 and 200 GW of cumulative installed capacity in Germany—the global market was adding just 27 GW to 30 GW per year. The objective was intended to inspire and motivate the industry.

The outcome exceeded even those ambitions. The industry did not merely reach 300 GW of annual installations; it surpassed that milestone spectacularly, ending 2025 with 698 gigawatts of newly installed photovoltaic capacity.

Global installed PV capacity now stands at almost 3 TW. While it took nearly 40 years to reach the first terawatt, total capacity has tripled within just three years.

Germany has now reached 126 GW of installed PV capacity—almost 2.5 times the former 52 GW cap that remained in force until the summer of 2020. When that cap was introduced in 2012, Germany’s cumulative capacity stood at just 34 GW.

At that time, photovoltaics supplied around 4.5% of Germany’s electricity generation. By 2025, that share has risen to 16% to 16.9%. Nearly 6 million PV systems are now registered across the country. Of these, more than 1.3 million are balcony or plug-in solar systems—a market segment that was effectively nonexistent and unmeasured in 2012.

PV has become firmly embedded in German society. More than 15% of all households now actively generate electricity from the sun.

Germany alone installed more new PV capacity in 2025 than the entire European Union did in 2012. Yet the EU still falls far short of its financial and technical potential for annual PV deployment.

Today, new solar and wind projects can increasingly be developed without subsidies or special advantages. By contrast, new gas-fired power plants—and the few remaining nuclear projects—continue to depend on substantial public support and long-term policy privileges.

The year 2025 also marks another significant milestone. Thanks to the massive expansion of PV—equivalent to approximately 1.4 billion solar modules and generating electricity comparable to around 150 large nuclear power plants—global fossil fuel consumption for electricity generation declined for the first time despite overall growth in energy demand.

This represents a monumental achievement.

More has been accomplished than even the most ambitious advocates once promised. These successes should inspire both the next generation of “Burning Ambitions” and the continued effort to advance the ongoing electric revolution.

Several additional figures underline the pace of change in 2025:

• Global electric vehicle sales increased by 20%, exceeding 20 million vehicles.
• The global battery storage market expanded by more than 50%.

Such extraordinary progress deserves reflection, lessons for today’s challenges, and new ideas for the next major leap forward.

Looking back to 2012

On September 26, 2012, on a cloudy day in Frankfurt, the pv magazine/Solarpraxis initiative “300 GW/a PV initiative” was presented during EU PVSEC. Among those attending were then-Fraunhofer ISE Director Eike Weber and then-Reiner Lemoine Institute Managing Director Christian Breyer.

Against the backdrop of an extremely difficult year for the industry and a global market of only 27 GW to 30 GW, proposing a more than tenfold expansion generated both enthusiasm and skepticism. Some observers dismissed the vision as “crazy,” while others rejected it outright.

The German target of 200 GW of cumulative installed capacity was viewed by some industry representatives as particularly risky, with concerns that it might alarm policymakers.

Germany installed almost 8 GW in 2012, accounting for more than 25% of the global market. The EU installed over 16 GW, representing more than 60% of worldwide demand, while China added only about 3 GW that year.

An industry under pressure

By late summer 2012, concerns throughout the industry were profound. Across Europe, market support programs were being scaled back or terminated, while a major trade dispute with China was looming.

Many leading PV manufacturers had already gone bankrupt or were close to insolvency. At the same time, the German government failed to recognize the industrial and technological capabilities that the country had built.

The February 2012 amendment to the Renewable Energy Act—often referred to as the “EE Guillotine Amendment”—focused almost exclusively on reducing feed-in tariffs while overlooking the broader technological and industrial significance of the sector.

The result was an unprecedented wave of bankruptcies throughout the German solar industry. Germany’s position as a technological and industrial pioneer was severely weakened, and the consequences are still visible today.

What later became known as the “Altmaier dip” was already having devastating effects in 2012, with tens of thousands of jobs lost that year alone. Many affected companies—often small and medium-sized enterprises or craft businesses—disappeared quietly, attracting little attention from either politicians or the media.

Few moments in the history of the Federal Republic have seen a future-oriented technology suffer such a rapid setback due to a combination of strategic misjudgment and ideological policymaking.

Understanding this context is essential to understanding the atmosphere surrounding the solar industry in September 2012 and the long-term consequences of inadequate industrial policy.

Since then, China has consistently prioritized innovation and manufacturing scale. As a result, it now dominates the global solar industry. Our hope in 2012 was that global PV development would continue despite Germany’s policy mistakes and that the sector would not be derailed.

The 300 GW Initiative sought to communicate precisely that message: the industry had a bright future and was worth supporting despite its immediate challenges.

Technology changed the equation

Another major factor influencing our “Burning Ambition” in 2012 was the state of battery technology.

Battery storage cost more than €1,000 ($1.154) per kWh, and no mass-produced electric vehicle could reliably deliver a driving range of 200 kilometers.

Today, virtually every mass-market EV exceeds that range, while battery prices have fallen by more than 90%. Large-scale manufacturing has driven rapid innovation while dramatically reducing costs.

Thirteen years ago, these developments were themselves considered unrealistic visions. In many cases, they attracted even more skepticism than our projections for solar deployment.

Consequently, even our own expectations for the future PV market were conservative compared with its true long-term potential. With affordable battery storage and continued reductions in module and cell costs, the market potential is measured not in hundreds but in several thousand gigawatts of annual installations.

What an extraordinary success.

New ambitions

The global energy market, at more than 170,000 TWh per year, is many times larger than today’s electricity market alone. The ongoing electric revolution seeks to serve that entire market sustainably and far more efficiently than current systems.

Against that backdrop, a new ambition could be 3 TW of annual global solar installations by 2035. Achieving that goal would require only a little more than a fourfold increase from the 698 GW installed in 2025—not the tenfold increase envisioned in 2012.

Battery storage and many other enabling technologies are now widely available, while costs continue to decline and efficiency continues to improve.

So why not set a new goal?

3,000 GW annually by 2035—make it happen.

Author: Karl-Heinz Remmers

Karl-Heinz Remmers was publisher of pv magazine from 2008 to 2015, before handing over to Eckhart Gouras. He is chief executive of PV service and product company Solarpraxis AG and has been active in the solar industry for almost three decades.