The 2026 Intersolar Europe Conference addresses the most recent trends, issues and markets in the solar industry. What topics will be covered in this year's edition?
Walburga Hemetsberger, CEO of SolarPower Europe and a member of the conference committee, provided us with an overview of the topics that will be discussed in Munich.
The scale of Intersolar Europe and the wider The Smarter E Europe gathering is always very powerful. The conference is an opportunity to learn and collaborate meaningfully while so many of Europe’s solar & battery leaders are in the same place at the same time.
We are very much looking forward in particular to special exhibit Renewables 24/7. It is now the time to look into how we can best provide around-the-clock service to electricity consumers with green technologies.
The backdrop of this year’s conference is the war in Iran. It can’t be ignored. The challenges we’ve been enduring as an industry are still there. Things like permitting backlogs, grid bottlenecks, the pressure on business cases through negative prices and curtailments…The conference dedicates a lot of time to solar and storage as a combined solution. Non-fossil flexibility, especially from storage, is an essential part of Europe’s future energy security.
The off-grid and mini grid sessions are interesting. There is an opportunity for some parts of the globe to leapfrog centralized grids and build something altogether new. I hope Europe can turbocharge that process with partner countries.
As has become tradition, our Global Market Outlook for Solar Power will be launched on Monday 22 June. Our European Battery Outlook also launches on Wednesday 24. We hope these reports can help the sector to make sense of where we stand now and where we need to get to during a period of unprecedented uncertainty. The “Solar Made in the EU” session on Tuesday 23 June is also well-timed. The fossil fuel price crisis puts a lot of focus on the downstream, but we must also keep working on this topic positively across the sector.
6. What do you hope attendees will take away from this year’s conference?
A sense of urgency and action. The latest crisis should be a moment for the sector to collaborate and ensure solar can deliver for Europe.