Europe’s photovoltaic market is moving away from a model dominated by fixed feed-in tariffs towards greater participation in electricity markets. For PV operators, this means generation increasingly needs to respond to electricity prices, grid conditions and local demand rather than simply feeding power into the network.
Dirk Gabel, Jürgen Raedle and Benjamin Ratzke of Solar-Log GmbH argue that Switzerland offers an important example of this transition, with regulatory changes supporting direct marketing and Local Electricity Communities (LECs).
Switzerland changes its market framework
On 1st January 2026, Switzerland fully implemented the Federal Act on a Secure Electricity Supply from Renewable Energies, known as the Mantelerlass.
The new framework introduces several changes:
The aim is to integrate decentralised generation more closely with market and grid operations.
Why controllability matters
Direct marketing depends on the ability to monitor and control PV installations. This can be difficult where a commercial or industrial site contains inverters, meters, batteries and sensors from different manufacturers.
Solar-Log presents manufacturer-independent gateways as one way of addressing this issue. Its Solar-Log Base collects plant data and connects equipment with monitoring and market systems.
The company identifies three technical requirements as particularly important:
These capabilities are company-specific, but they illustrate the broader technical requirements created by direct market participation.
Different markets, similar pressures
European countries are approaching market integration differently.
Germany has required direct marketing for installations of 100 kW or more since 2016, with increasing attention now being paid to peak shaving and avoiding generation during negative electricity prices.
Austria has developed renewable energy communities, while Spain is combining direct marketing with large battery energy storage systems (BESS).
In southern European markets, strong midday solar generation can push spot prices towards zero. The authors argue that storage and active load management are therefore becoming increasingly important to project economics.
Negative prices increase the value of flexibility
Negative electricity prices are one of the clearest signals that renewable generation needs to become more responsive.
When supply exceeds demand, operators may need to reduce generation rather than continue exporting electricity. Forecasting, remote control and storage can help operators respond to these periods while reducing potential losses.
This moves PV away from a passive ‘build-and-forget’ model towards actively managed generation.
What direct marketing requires
Four basic technical requirements stand out:
Generation, a data logger or communication gateway and a direct marketing portal together connect the physical PV asset with power traders and electricity markets.
Cybersecurity becomes increasingly important within this architecture because remote control requires secure communications, encrypted data transmission and controlled access.
As European PV capacity grows, the authors expect the boundaries between self-consumption, local electricity communities and wider electricity markets to become less distinct.
For operators, the challenge will be to combine physical generation with monitoring, control, storage and market participation. Solar is no longer only about producing electricity. Increasingly, value depends on deciding when, where and under what market conditions that electricity should be used or sold.
Read the full insight from Solar-Log GmbH on direct marketing, Local Electricity Communities and European PV market integration in PES Solar: https://pes.eu.com/exclusive-articles/solar-market-integration-europe-at-a-turning-point