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Once the pile drivers leave: training Europe’s solar fleet

Published in: Solar, Talking Point, Exclusive Articles

Once the pile drivers leave: training Europe’s solar fleet image

As Europe’s solar fleet continues to grow, the challenge is shifting from installation to long-term performance. Advanced diagnostic tools can help identify faults faster, but practical training and experienced judgement remain essential to keeping solar assets operating safely and efficiently.

Across Europe, the pace of new solar installations is easing. The EU still added 69 GW in 2025, but the EU Solar Jobs Report 2026 expects deployment growth to stall for the rest of the decade. New systems are still being installed, while existing ones need maintenance. Even the UK, still racing to more than double its fleet by 2030, faces the same arithmetic: every plant spends a year or two being built and the rest of its life being run.

That load is getting heavier. In June 2025, solar became the EU’s largest source of electricity for the first time, according to Ember, and even with slower growth the fleet is growing faster than the number of people who can keep it running.

If you’ve watched a fault take longer to find than it should, you’ve seen that gap at work. The diagnostic kit in an operations & maintenance (O&M) van has come a long way. Whether the people using it are being trained fast enough to get the most from it is another matter, and one the industry has yet to settle.

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