Solar capture rates in Europe continue falling as more solar is added. The long arc across Europe reflects exactly that: Germany captured 94% of the wholesale average in 2022 and 51% by the end of 2025.

Q2 seemed to buck the trend: Capture rates trended higher year-on-year in many markets, based on strong solar ramps causing evening scarcity and extreme price spikes. In July, the bigger story returns - every European market reported solar capture rates below July a year earlier.

Solar capture rates are not the only indicator for solar revenues - capture prices, for example, more accurately reflect what an asset actually earns. But they are influenced by factors other than solar generation alone - and gas has repriced the entire curve. With TTF trading around 70% above last summer, wholesale prices rose across almost every European market, and that lifts solar capture prices regardless of how much cannibalisation is happening underneath.

The general story is the same across Europe. But different countries show different manifestations of the same drivers - some with more cannibalisation but higher gas reliance, others with little gas reliance but strong cannibalisation.

Key takeaways

• Every market captured less of the wholesale average than in July 2025, as strong solar generation cannibalised value. The extreme price spikes from in June did not materialise again.
• The gas price rally at the end of July reached solar revenue only where gas still sets the midday price. Italian solar captured €137.96/MWh, the highest in Europe, and Italy and Great Britain are the only markets where solar capture prices are climbing.
• Solar capture rates in France and Poland are falling strongly, even though they have less solar installed than Germany and Spain.
• Germany's rolling 12-month capture rate is rising slightly, up 6 percentage points compared to the full year 2025. This mostly reflects the weight this summer's evening price spikes carry in a generation-weighted average as capacity grows. Germany’s monthly rate fell 10.6 points year-on-year, second only to France in the year-on-year drop.

Capture rates return to falling year-on-year after Q2 seemed to buck the trend

Every market Modo Energy tracks captured a smaller share of the wholesale average than a year earlier. This is not a surprise in a continent adding solar every month - despite the heat-wave-driven year-on-year uplift in Q2. France gave up the most ground, falling to 51.9%, and Italy the least, holding at 90.8%.

Germany is the exception, its rolling 12-month capture rate climbing 6 points over the year even as the monthly figure dropped. That owes almost nothing to easing cannibalisation and almost everything to this summer's evening price spikes, which lifted Q2 capture rates sharply. As the annual rates are weighted by generation, the most recent high-output months dominate that calculation because there was more solar online during those periods. The effect is already fading, with the rolling rate peaking in June and continuing its downwards trend in July.

Solar captured the gas rally only in countries where gas still sets the midday price

Italian solar earned three times what French solar managed in July, and the gap has less to do with irradiation than with which technology clears the market at noon. Italian gas plants remain the marginal unit through most solar hours, so a gas rally passes almost undiluted into solar revenue.