Elhub records 1,003 MW of solar capacity in Norway as of mid-September 2026. Slowing annual installations mean the country must expand large-scale project delivery and enable solar sharing to lift yearly deployment toward gigawatt-scale.
To scale to ~1 GW per year, Norway needs 300–500 MW of new licensed large parks annually and faster construction of permitted projects.
Why the milestone matters practically
Reaching 1 GW shows that solar is now a persistent element of Norway's power system, though it remains a small share of total generation given the country's large hydropower base. Solar complements hydropower seasonally: drier, sunnier years boost solar output when reservoirs are low, while wet years leave reservoirs full and hydropower abundant. As solar capacity grows, it can help use reservoirs more effectively as seasonal storage and reduce vulnerability to dry years.
Current growth pattern and constraints
Norway's annual deployment has slowed. 2026 is forecast to be the weakest year since 2021, and annual additions will likely fall well short of the 2023 record (~300 MW). The country's large-scale solar market is still immature: by May 2026 only five of 16 licensed solar parks had been built, according to NVE. Gholami attributes this to weak profitability and limited grid capacity.
What would materially change annual deployment
Large solar parks: A single 20–30 MW park represents a substantial share of Norway's expected annual additions. If two or three such parks are completed in 2027–2028, annual figures would improve noticeably, though still below Denmark's multi-hundred-megawatt annual park-driven deliveries. To approach 1 GW per year, licensing and municipal approvals must consistently yield 300–500 MW of new parks annually, and those parks must be constructed.
Concrete short-term indicators to watch
Reporting and analysis in this brief are based on Elhub data, NVE's solar dashboard, and comments by Hassan Gholami of Multiconsult reported by pv magazine Global.
Statkraft has announced that the first panels are being installed on site at Soay solar farm in the UK.
Official statistics from the Netherlands show the drop in annual solar installations last year was larger than estimates indicated. Annual deployments are now forecast to stabilise around 1.3 GW through to 2028. The post Netherlands installs 1.4 GW of solar in 2025 appeared first on pv magazine Global .
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