Europe's chip and solar giants feel the energy squeeze as ASML sells nothing at home

ASML sold nothing in Europe in the first two quarters of this year. Frank Heemskerk, executive vice president for public affairs at the Dutch maker of extreme ultraviolet lithography machines, said so on 25 September at a panel in Amsterdam, as reported by Tom's Hardware. He was blunt: "We are selling absolutely nothing in Europe. Because Europe is not investing and because no chip factories are being built in Europe."

Heemskerk put the European share of ASML revenue at 0%, down from 1% in 2025 and 5% in 2024. The numbers come from ASML's own investor presentations and earnings reports. That is not a rounding error at a company that supplies every leading-edge fab in Asia and the United States. Its market capitalisation sits at around $660 billion, making it Europe's largest company by that measure. ASML's argument is that the EU has spent years subsidising the supply side, the fabs themselves, without doing enough to guarantee demand for the chips those fabs would make. "There simply is no demand here for these kinds of highly specialised machines," Heemskerk said. "So apart from trying to attract investment with capital on the supply side, we should do much more to create demand."

Demand is the missing piece

ASML is talking to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen about aggregating and guaranteeing demand for European-made chips. The idea would give manufacturers an economic reason to build or expand on the continent. Heemskerk named industrial AI as one area where Europe still has opportunities, but only if buyers, the customers of ASML's customers, are organised collectively. Tom's Hardware notes that the picture is not uniformly bleak. Intel runs Fab 34 near Leixlip in Ireland and recently announced a €5 billion investment to expand CPU production there on Intel 4 and Intel 3 process technologies. ESMC, backed by TSMC, Bosch, Infineon and NXP, is building a fab near Dresden that will cost around €15 billion and make 12nm/16nm-class FinFET and 22nm/28nm planar chips for automotive and consumer applications. Those projects are real. They are also small next to what the US, China and India are building, and Heemskerk's point is that without committed buyers, the next round of investment may not follow.

Solar prices move in opposite directions on two continents

The same week ASML reported zero European sales, pv magazine published its Chinese PV Industry Brief on 25 September, which shows prices rising at the factory gate in China. Growatt said it will raise prices for string inverters, hybrid and storage inverters, commercial and industrial storage cabinets and residential storage systems by around 5% to 10% from 8 October. The company blamed higher raw-material costs, tighter supplies of some core components and rising manufacturing expenses. Sungrow had already raised prices by around 5% to 15% for several solar inverter categories from 20 September. Component prices are also firming in Chinese tenders. China South-to-North Water Diversion Group finalised its 2026-27 module framework procurement this week, covering 1.3 GW. The tender includes 1 GW of TOPCon modules at an average awarded price of around CNY 0.72 ($0.10) per watt and 300 MW of back-contact modules at about CNY 0.778/W. Longi, Aiko Solar and GCL System Integration were among the winners of the BC lot, and the roughly CNY 0.058/W gap gives BC modules an average premium of about 8.1% over TOPCon under the same framework. In the United States, the direction is the same but the cause is political. Anza, a solar and energy storage data company, expects at least a 40% spike in US module prices after Section 232 tariffs take effect on 4 December, pv magazine reported on 26 September. Anza says the median price for imported modules was $0.27/W before the 7 August proclamation and is now $0.38/W for delivery after 4 December among suppliers that have repriced. As of 9 September, 55% of active suppliers on its platform had Section 232-inclusive pricing, covering 65% of modules on the platform. For European buyers, the two stories point the same way: equipment and components are getting more expensive, not less. The Chinese increases come from input costs and component scarcity. The US increase is a tariff. Neither is a demand story.

Capital keeps moving, slowly

On 25 September, Tech.eu reported that Nordic energy company Fortum has joined Norrsken Evolve as a limited partner, investing through its innovation and venturing arm. The commitment follows the final close of Norrsken Evolve's oversubscribed €62 million pre-seed fund this summer. Norrsken Evolve has backed more than 80 companies, 75% of which have gone on to raise follow-on investment, according to the firm.

"Europe has the talent and the technology to power its economy on clean electricity, and our founders are building the companies that will make that happen," said Johan Attby, general partner at Norrsken Evolve. "What Fortum brings is the operational depth that financial investors cannot."

Fortum supplies reliable energy to more than two million customers, with core operations in low-carbon power generation, customer services and heating and cooling. The investment sits alongside Norrsken's Electro Union campaign, which calls on the EU to commit to 50% electrification of final energy consumption by 2040. That is a target, not a policy, and it is a long way from the demand guarantees ASML is asking for. Meanwhile the US Department of Energy announced a $99 million round of funding on 21 September for 21 next-generation geothermal projects, CleanTechnica reported on 26 September. Quaise Energy is in line for up to $25 million for its Project Obsidian showcase in central Oregon. The DOE says data from the funded projects will be public through its Geothermal Data Repository. The awards still have to be negotiated. And in Utah, Fervo Energy achieved first power at its Cape Station plant in Beaver County this week, The Register reported on 25 September. The first of three 33 MW GeoBlocks has begun supplying electricity to the grid and is expected to reach commercial operation next week, with another 66 MW due by New Year. Fervo says the site could eventually scale past four gigawatts and is working toward 900 MW of contracted capacity. Google is one of the beneficiaries.

What Europe is actually short of

Strip away the sector specifics and a pattern holds. Europe's problem is not a shortage of capital or ideas. It is a shortage of buyers willing to commit at scale, which is what ASML's Heemskerk said plainly. The EU has subsidised fabs and published electrification targets, but the demand side, the customers of the customers, has not been organised. Canary Media reported on 25 September that 87% of US clean energy generation happened in rural areas as of last year, per a Rural Climate Partnership analysis, and that more than 60% of US counties with renewable energy restrictions are rural. The politics of building are hard everywhere. Europe's version is slower: no fabs, no orders, no revenue share. ASML's 0% is the number to watch.