Solar is being rolled out like crazy and the main constraint is not the available sunlight but rather getting a connection to the grid. In fact if you look at where there's the most solar power in Europe, it's north western Europe (Benelux + Germany) even though one might expect it would produce more in Southern Europe
This is because of extreme subsidies. In the Netherlands people can still subtract the solar power they feed back to the grid from their bill on a kWh basis. This is called "salderen". It's pretty unfair because the power is fed back when it's cheap and the people without panels (or that can't have them) are paying for it through higher prices and taxes. Because obviously the energy companies aren't charities so they make up the difference one way or another. And in winter these panels aren't very effective there.
Meanwhile here in Spain where solar panels would do a lot more good there aren't many due to lack of incentives. I don't think they should do the same kind of feedback incentive but it would be great if they'd subsidize the purchase price which is much harder to stomach due to Spain's much lower salary standards. And of course these are great to power air conditioning which is pretty much a must in Spain whereas the Netherlands needs more energy in winter for heating. So a net win for the environment.
Global Solar Atlas* gives a pretty good overview of the gains from solar that can be expected depending on latitude. North of France solar just isn't very efficient so to get a decent amount of power out of it would require setting up solar farms across large areas. Maybe setting up solar in pasture would work, but good luck getting that past the NIMBYs.
Wind is more attractive, but needs tons of infra work to be a proper solution and the power of atom can't be harnessed because of the stark lack of research and knowledge, the heavy upfront costs, and shenanigans from so-called "green" parties.
I'm guessing the politicians' battle plan is basically "hope someone else fixes it and lets me take credit."
The map highlights a future of power cables through Turkey and Spain with North Africa and the Arab states providing power sourced from the sun, with additional solar -> ammonia -> transport -> storage -> hydrogen -> baseload generation.
Details aside it's much like today, with the massive gas lines to Russia out of the picture (transformed and redirected if you will).
It's a big shift, yes, but on the scale of what has been done before.
