Solar module prices fall in Europe, bifacial TOPCon rises

Nikita LutsenkoFounder & CEO, SOLTECH

Back contact, full black and monofacial TOPCon prices all fell in Europe in August 2026, while bifacial TOPCon rose 6% to EUR 0.116/Wp - the cheapest module.

Solar module prices in Europe fell across three of four categories in August 2026, according to the sun.store PV Index published on 7 September. Back contact modules averaged EUR 0.133/Wp, full black EUR 0.130/Wp and monofacial TOPCon EUR 0.122/Wp. Bifacial TOPCon rose 6% to EUR 0.116/Wp, staying the cheapest option. Buyer demand fell below its historic average.

What European module and inverter prices were in August 2026

The premium and the commodity are pulling apart

The gap between premium module types and standard utility-scale TOPCon has widened since the early months of 2026. Back contact sits at EUR 0.133/Wp and bifacial TOPCon at EUR 0.116/Wp - a spread of 15% for products that will both make electricity for 25 years.

That spread buys two things: efficiency per square metre and appearance. Back contact and full black modules are generally reserved for residential and corporate rooftops, where the roof is small enough that watts per square metre decide the system size, or where the client cares what the array looks like. Neither reason applies to a ground-mount plant with spare land, which is why bifacial TOPCon remains the default there.

The PV Index made the practical point directly: bifacial and monofacial TOPCon are now priced apart, which matters for anyone specifying on price alone. A tender written as "TOPCon modules" no longer describes one price.

Why the inverter numbers need reading twice

A headline fall of more than 20% in string inverter prices looks like a price war and is not one. The PV Index attributed the easing mostly to a change in the mix of models trading, rather than a cut to any single product.

The mechanism is straightforward. July's trades carried a heavier weighting of premium three-phase inverters from European manufacturers such as SMA and Fronius, which cost more. August moved toward competitively priced, larger commercial-scale models from GoodWe, Solis and SolarEdge. The average moved because the basket changed. Anyone budgeting from a single month's average index number, rather than from a quote for the specific model they intend to install, will get this wrong.

Hybrid inverters split by size in the opposite direction: units up to 20 kW were almost flat at about minus 1%, while units above 20 kW rose 11.1% month on month. Chinese suppliers dominate the hybrid category, led by Deye, Solis, Huawei, GoodWe and Sungrow.

Demand cooled from the spring

Buyer demand for solar modules in Europe has run below historic averages for two months. The PV Index Purchasing Managers Index, which surveys buyer sentiment on future purchasing intentions, read 65 in August against an average of 68 since the index began.

The forward split was almost evenly balanced: 43% of surveyed buyers planned to buy more modules in September than in August, 43% expected no change and 14% planned to buy fewer. That is a market waiting, not a market retreating.

The SOLTECH view

This is a European price index and we are not going to pretend it is a Gulf one. What it is good for is direction, and the direction it shows is not the one most people assume.

• For a villa owner in the UAE: nothing here changes your quote this month, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling. Your system cost is dominated by installation labour, mounting, DEWA connection work and the inverter, not by a euro-cent movement on a module in Rotterdam. The one line worth noticing is that full black modules fell almost 6%, the largest drop of any category. If the aesthetics of a villa rooftop system matter to you, the premium for a uniformly black array is narrowing. See our breakdown of what solar actually costs in Dubai for where the money really goes.
• For a warehouse or factory owner: the inverter numbers are the ones to read. String inverters above 20 kW at EUR 24.26/kW versus 1-20 kW units at EUR 41.40/kW is a 41% difference per kilowatt, and it is the clearest argument we know for sizing a C&I system around fewer, larger inverters rather than many small ones. But note the mix effect: that average moved because different models traded, so ask your contractor for a quote on named models, not a market average. Our inverter guide covers the trade-offs.
• For an investor or EPC: bifacial TOPCon rising 6% while everything else fell is the signal, because bifacial is what utility-scale actually buys. One month is not a trend, and we would not rebuild a financial model on it. We would, however, stop treating "TOPCon module price" as a single input in a 2027 budget - see how we handle equipment assumptions in project modelling.

Where we would push back: the coverage frames this as prices falling, and for the largest slice of the market they rose. Three categories down and one up reads as a decline only if you weight the categories equally, and the market does not - utility-scale bifacial moves far more watts than back contact does. We would also note what the index cannot tell you. It reports European wholesale transactions, not factory gate prices, and the Gulf buys on different terms with different freight, so the absolute numbers do not transfer. Treat the shape of the move as informative and the level as somebody else's market.

Sources: PV Tech - European PV module prices and demand fall in August, 7 September 2026, sun.store PV Index.