Solar Heat Europe contributed to the European Commission’s consultation on the revision for the EU public procurement rules.
Public procurement represents a key tool which can help favour EU-made technologies, in line with the call to promote and protect EU industries. As a key EU-based sector, our main input to the consultation called for adequate consideration of non-price criteria in the set of criteria used for public procurement. When a public building is planning to install solar energy, solar thermal, PVT and PV technologies price should not be the only main criterion. Europe is currently highly dependent on imported photovoltaic panels, while it has a strong manufacturing base for solar thermal collectors.
Our key recommendations to the Commission:
- Introduce a “Made in Europe” criterion in public procurement to protect European-made Net Zero technologies, such as solar thermal, while avoiding additional administrative burdens for SMEs in the sector.
- Increase monitoring of technologies where Europe depends on a single external supplier.
- Provide a European guidance to help public authorities understand the whole range of solar technologies available when planning the solarisation of buildings.
- Develop guidelines detailing which technologies are suitable for different temperature needs, to enable a more structured and objective tendering process.
- Prohibit calls for projects that favour one specific technology over others, ensuring all clean heating technologies can compete on equal terms.
By updating public procurement rules in this way, the European Commission will ensure fair competition between technologies, will reduce its strategic dependencies and will strengthen Europe’s clean tech manufacturing base, while accelerating the deployment of efficient and sustainable solar solutions across public buildings.