According to a survey, 30% of the electricity generated in the European Union in the first half of this year came from solar and wind power, surpassing that of fossil fuels.
According to climate thinktank Ember, the amount of power generated by burning coal, oil, and gas decreased by 17% in the first half of 2024 as compared to the same period the previous year. It discovered that since the first half of 2022, the sector’s emissions had decreased by one-third as a result of the ongoing transition away from dirty fuels.
The growth of solar and wind power is reducing the need for fossil fuels, according to Chris Rosslowe, an analyst at Ember. “The power sector is undergoing a historic shift, and it is happening quickly.”
According to the analysis, during the first half of 2023 and the first half of 2024, EU power plants used 14% less gas and 24% less coal. The change occurs in spite of a little increase in the demand for power after a two-year decrease attributed to the epidemic and the conflict in Ukraine.
“Freedom from reliance on fossil fuels will truly start to come into view if member states can keep up the momentum on wind and solar deployment,” stated Rosslowe.
Europe has some of the most aggressive goals to clean up its economy, but it is also one of the major historical polluters that has contributed the planet-heating gas that has increased the ferocity of extreme weather. With more bellicose rhetoric and more lenient regulatory guidelines, European politicians have accelerated their transition to renewable energy since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
However, the wind business has battled with significant inflation in addition to ongoing resistance from the public and lawmakers, whereas solar power has flourished. According to the lobby group Wind generating Europe, the EU installed a record 16.2GW of new wind generating capacity in 2023, but this amounted to just about half of what was required in that year for the EU to reach its climate targets for the end of the decade.
According to scenarios projected by the International Energy Agency and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), solar radiation from panels and wind gusts rotating turbines will provide the majority of the electricity required to run a clean economy.
According to the Ember report, in the first half of the year, 13 member states produced more electricity from solar and wind power than from fossil fuels. The writers discovered that the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and Hungary had achieved that milestone for the first time.
The development was deemed “significant but not surprising” by Andrea Hahmann, a scientist at Denmark Technical University who co-wrote an IPCC report chapter on energy systems.
“The majority of wind energy is produced in northern Europe, where strong winds were common during the first half of 2024,” she stated. “We shouldn’t succumb to pessimism; the ‘crossing of the lines’ shows that the EU’s electrical transition is feasible. The required renewable energy targets are significant, but they are doable with the right policy measures in place.
The heading of this article was changed on July 30, 2024, to explicitly state that 30% of the electricity in the EU comes from solar and wind power. If hydropower and other renewables were included, the percentage would be 50%. In order to clearly show that the source data was not limited to the EU’s 13 members, but rather included the entire EU, the images were also modified.