Europe is importing a solar boom. Good news for (nearly) everyone

A banner running down the side of the European Commission’s headquarters in Brussels depicts cartoon workers recladding its 13-floor façade with solar panels. The illustration might come across as a cruel joke to residents of the Belgian capital, for whose leaden skies the phrase “fifty shades of grey” could have been coined. But thanks to green edicts devised by the Euro-wallahs at the commission, the continent’s fields and rooftops are being paved with very real photovoltaic cells. In 2023 the equivalent of one nuclear reactor of solar power was installed every single week. In the past three years nearly as many panels have been plugged into EU power grids as had been since the industry dawned at the century’s start. By 2030 the bloc is aiming to triple the number of solar panels installed, thus covering an area bigger than 300,000 football pitches, two dozen times the size of Paris.