EU renewables overtake fossil fuels

Renewables (onshore and offshore wind, solar, hydro, biofuels) for the first time since renewables started to be rolled out in 1990, now contribute more to the EU's electricity supply than fossil fuels (black coal, brown coal, gas.)

 From EMBER

Wind and solar are powering Europe’s renewables rise. Wind generation rose 9% in 2020 and solar generation rose 15%. Together they generated a fifth of Europe’s electricity in 2020. Since 2015, wind and solar have supplied all of Europe’s growth in renewables, as bioenergy growth has stalled, and hydro generation remains unchanged.

Renewables rise is still too slow – wind and solar generation growth must nearly triple to reach Europe’s 2030 green deal targets: from 38 TWh per year average growth in 2010-2020 to 100 TWh per year average growth between 2020-2030. It is encouraging that wind and solar increased by 51 terawatt-hours in 2020, well above the 2010-2020 average, despite facing some impact from Covid-19. The IEA forecast record wind and solar capacity growth in 2021. Still, EU countries need to step up their 2030 commitments considerably. At the moment, national energy and climate plans only add up to about 72 TWh new wind and solar per year, not the 100 TWh/year that are needed.  

Coal generation fell 20% in 2020, and has halved since 2015. Coal generation fell in almost every country, continuing coal’s collapse that was well in place before Covid-19. Half of the drop in 2020 was due to a decrease in electricity demand, which fell by 4% due to the impact of Covid-19; and half was from additional wind and solar. As electricity demand bounces back in 2021, wind and solar will need to rise at a faster rate if the recent falls in coal are to be sustained. 

Gas generation fell only 4% in 2020, despite the pandemic. Most of the fall in fossil was on coal rather than gas in 2020, because a robust carbon price meant gas generation was the cheapest form of fossil generation, even undercutting lignite for the first time in some months. Nuclear generation fell by 10% in 2020 – probably the largest fall ever – and that also kept gas (and to a lesser-extent coal) generation from falling further.

This means Europe’s electricity in 2020 was 29% cleaner than in 2015. Carbon intensity has fallen from 317 grams of CO2 per kilowatt-hour in 2015 to 226 grams in 2020. Although coal generation has almost halved in that time, 43% of the coal decline has been offset by increased gas generation, slowing the reduction in carbon intensity.

Every time someone says 'we can't switch to renewables, because too hard / too big / too expensive', we can now point to Europe, which is halfway through that transition.  The riposte to South Australia's achievement of 60% renewables penetration is, 'SA is small with a low population'.   The EU-27's countries have a population of 447 million.  It contributes something like 18% to world GDP.  

If they can do it, we all can.