Ban on inverters from high-risk countries, led by China, to affect 14% of EU solar demand through 2030

The recent European Commission decision to ban PV inverters and power-conversion systems (PCS) from China and other countries the Commission considers high risk, from all European Union (EU)-funded clean energy projects may affect around 14% of forecasted European solar PV demand from 2026 to 2030, totalling over 28 GW_dc of PV inverter demand, according to new analysis from Wood Mackenzie.

Potentially, 12% of forecast energy storage deployments will also be impacted over the same period, with utility-scale storage facing the greatest exposure.

The ban, which seeks to address Chinese vendor domination in Europe's inverter market, where Chinese suppliers accounted for over 80% of inverter shipments to Europe in 2025, will most affect countries in Central and Eastern Europe, where EU funding is more prevalent. Romania, Bulgaria, Czechia, the Baltic states and Greece are among the most exposed markets.

Critically, the European Commission is also asking EU Member States to adopt this restriction for any solar and energy storage projects receiving funding from their own national budgets. If Member States comply, the share of capacity affected would expand significantly beyond the current estimates.

While inverter cost premiums for European-made alternatives are substantial, Wood Mackenzie's analysis indicates that the overall impact on total project costs is more modest, in the range of 2% to 8% depending on market segment.

“However, cost is not the only disruptive factor,” said Joe Shangraw, research analyst at Wood Mackenzie. “Procurement complications, design changes and the forced unbundling of integrated battery-inverter systems present additional challenges, particularly in price-sensitive Eastern European markets”.

The effects of the ban will also extend beyond EU borders, with utility-scale solar projects in North Africa, the Middle East and the Caspian region subject to the restriction where they receive EU institutional financing. Also, pending revisions to the EU Cybersecurity Act could expand the ban to cover all solar PV inverters and storage Power Conversion Systems (PCS), regardless of the source of funding, which would dramatically expand the scope of restrictions.

"This ban represents a meaningful shift, around 4 to 5 GW per year of demand moving away from Chinese vendors through 2030,” said Juan Monge, principal analyst at Wood Mackenzie. “But it is important to keep that in context: roughly 80% of European solar and storage demand flows through private and nationally funded channels, where Chinese inverter dominance will remain intact for now. The real questions now are how the Commission will update the EU Cybersecurity Act to treat solar inverters as critical infrastructure and whether EU Member States will follow the Commission's lead and extend these restrictions to their own national funding programmes. If they do, the scale of disruption changes considerably."