New data released by the research firm IHS, details that up to 69% of the planned solar installs across 2014 and 2015 throughout Europe are planned to take place in the UK. Approximately 7 gigawatts of solar pv are planned to be installed across Europe of the coming 18 months. With that factored the UK can expect at least 4.8GW of solar photo voltaic power installed over the next 18 months.

The findings of IHS have shown that the UK is poised to overtake Germany as Europe’s largest PV market by the close of 2014. Potential major overhauls to the in place support plans for installations over 5MW, as a recent consultation announced by the DECC regarding this support post April 2015, may lead to even greater increases in this field before the end of this year.

If this process brings the results that some are predicting, a sharp end to the ROC scheme for larger scale installations over 5MW in April 2015, then the UK can expect to see a huge increase in the number of ground mounted PV systems in an attempt to beat the tariff cutoff.

When it is taken into account that there are currently more than 4.8GW of planned projects, as much as 3 GW could be installed through the first quarter of 2015. The UK will cement its place at the epicentre of Europe’s ground-mount PV market.

IHS claims that 130MW of utility-scale capacity is under construction with 71 projects larger than 5MW, and totaling 681MW in capacity, ready to begin work in the UK at present