A few days ago, according to the data released by the Portuguese General Directorate of Energy and Geology (DGEG), the newly installed photovoltaic capacity in Portugal in the first half of the year was about 546MW.

A spokesman for the Portuguese Association of Renewable Energy (APREN) said that of the 546 MW, 225 MW of utility-scale solar projects and the remaining 321 MW came from self-consumption generation facilities in the domestic and commercial and industrial sectors.

In 2021, Portugal will install about 570MW of new solar capacity, which shows that the first half of this year is almost the same as the new additions in 2021. The newly added photovoltaics in 2020 and 2019 are 151MW and 252MW respectively.

Portugal’s cumulative PV capacity reached 2.19GW in June, an increase of 633% from 299MW in 2013 to 2,192MW in 2022.

Portugal's 2030 National Comprehensive Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) has set goals of 6.6 GW of total PV capacity by 2025 and 9 GW by 2030. According to DGEG, about 3.45GW of solar projects are currently licensed for production but not yet licensed to operate.

Overall, Portugal has around 16GW of renewable energy capacity in operation, led by 7.35GW of hydropower and 5.64GW of wind. While hydropower remains the largest source of renewable energy, its annual power generation fell by 38% between June 2021 and June 2022, while solar increased by 27%.