Portugal has announced revisions to the 2030 National Energy and Climate Plan (PNEC) under the slogan “a greener country, sooner.” It now hopes achieve climate neutrality by 2045.

The updated energy strategy aims for 80% of electricity in the country to be renewable by 2026, and 85% by 2030. The revised plan sets a target of 20.4 GW of operational PV systems in 2030, with 14.9 GW for utility-scale plants and 5.5 GW for distributed generation.

The government said that solar plant deployment should not exceed 0.4% of national territory and has called for compensation and community involvement. The new plan also includes improvements to authorization processes, designated areas, regulatory frameworks for distributed generation and energy communities, and new financial incentives.

Portugal’s cumulative PV capacity hit 2.59 GW at the end of 2022, outpacing the growth of other renewable energy sources. The latest statistics from Portugal's Directorate General for Energy and Geology (DGEG) also show that the country added just 118 MW of new solar capacity in the first four months of 2023.

BloombergNEF predicts that Portugal's solar installations will reach 1,363 MW by the end of 2023, a substantial increase compared to 890 MW last year.