IN Brief:
- EU funding restrictions on high-risk inverter suppliers could affect around 14% of forecast European solar demand from 2026 to 2030.
- More than 28GWdc of PV inverter demand and 12% of forecast energy storage deployment could be exposed.
- Central and Eastern European markets face the greatest procurement pressure because EU funding plays a larger role in project finance.
New analysis from Wood Mackenzie estimates that European Union restrictions on inverters and power conversion systems from China and other countries designated as high risk could affect around 14% of forecast solar PV demand through 2030.
The affected volume is estimated at more than 28GWdc of PV inverter demand between 2026 and 2030. Energy storage is also exposed, with 12% of forecast deployments over the same period potentially affected. Utility-scale storage faces the greatest pressure because power conversion systems are central to battery project design, procurement, warranty strategy, and system integration.
The restriction applies to EU-funded clean energy projects using PV inverters or storage power conversion systems from countries considered high risk by the European Commission. The immediate effect is likely to be concentrated in markets where EU funding has a larger role in project delivery, including Romania, Bulgaria, Czechia, the Baltic states, and Greece.
European solar and storage procurement is moving into a more security-led phase, with inverter sourcing increasingly treated as a critical infrastructure issue rather than a conventional equipment choice. Chinese suppliers accounted for more than 80% of inverter shipments to Europe in 2025, creating a dependency that now sits across energy security, cybersecurity, and supply chain resilience.
The cost effect varies by market segment. Wood Mackenzie places the total project cost impact at around 2% to 8%, depending on project type and procurement route. That range is material in price-sensitive auction and subsidy-backed projects, although equipment premiums may be only one part of the disruption.
Utility-scale solar and storage projects are designed around detailed electrical architecture. A change in inverter or PCS supplier can affect DC/AC ratios, grid compliance modelling, control interfaces, warranty structures, spare parts strategy, certification, SCADA integration, commissioning schedules, and long-term operations. In integrated storage systems, unbundling battery and conversion equipment can also alter fire safety documentation, protection settings, grid-forming capability, and supplier responsibility boundaries.
Joe Shangraw, research analyst at Wood Mackenzie, said: “However, cost is not the only disruptive factor. Procurement complications, design changes and the forced unbundling of integrated battery-inverter systems present additional challenges, particularly in price-sensitive Eastern European markets.”
The European Commission is asking EU Member States to apply the same restriction to solar and energy storage projects receiving national funding. If national governments follow that approach, the share of affected capacity would expand beyond the initial EU-funded estimate. Pending revisions to the EU Cybersecurity Act could widen the restriction further if solar inverters and storage PCS are treated more broadly as critical infrastructure components, regardless of public funding source.
The policy also reaches beyond the EU’s borders. Projects in North Africa, the Middle East, and the Caspian region may fall within scope where EU institutional finance is used. Developers working on export-oriented renewables, interconnection-linked generation, and infrastructure funded through European development finance channels will therefore need to assess inverter sourcing earlier in project design.
As industrial power systems become more software-defined, the controls embedded in conversion equipment are increasingly part of the security perimeter. Inverters convert DC output into grid-ready AC power, manage operating behaviour, communicate with monitoring systems, receive software updates, and interact with network requirements.
That role places inverters directly inside the operational logic of solar, battery, EV charging, and industrial energy systems. Hardware substitution is rarely a like-for-like commercial swap once communications, compliance, lifecycle support, and cybersecurity assurance are taken into account.
Juan Monge, principal analyst at Wood Mackenzie, said the restriction represents a shift of around 4GW to 5GW per year of demand away from Chinese vendors through 2030, while noting that roughly 80% of European solar and storage demand still flows through private and nationally funded channels.
The outcome now depends on how Member States respond, whether alternative suppliers can scale, and how quickly developers can revise designs without losing delivery windows. Europe is attempting to reduce technology dependency while expanding renewables at pace, leaving inverters directly between security policy and the delivery of solar and storage capacity.
