Rooftop PV can make a substantial contribution to urban electricity supply across each of the EU’s 27 capital cities, according to new research.

A research team from Athens’ Institute for Environmental Research and Sustainable Development and National and Kapodistrian University developed a framework integrating urban datasets, a climatological record covering 2008 to 2023 and standardised PV simulations to quantify the potential of rooftop solar across the EU’s capital cities. 

Their findings are presented in the research paper “Unified framework for the assessment of rooftop solar PV electricity generation potential in EU-27,” available in the December edition of the journal Energy.

Panagiotis Kosmopoulos, corresponding author of the study, told pv magazine the most important takeaway from the research is that rooftop solar has substantial potential in all European capital cities, but its contribution varies significantly depending on urban form, atmospheric conditions and local electricity demand.

Figures from the paper show Paris, France, has the largest exploitable and PV-compatible rooftop area, covering 72.2 km2, followed by Berlin, Germany, (52.4 km2) and Warsaw, Poland, (51.6 km2). On the other end of the scale, Nicosia, Cyprus, (6.2 km2) Ljubljana, Slovenia, (5.6 km2) and Valletta, Malta (2.6 km2) were found to have the smallest rooftop area that is realistically available for PV installations.

202 TWh) on the other end of the scale.

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