Three-quarters of the European Union’s electricity has been produced by sources without CO2 emissions since the start of the year, making it the Union’s greenest energy mix to date, according to industrial data published Monday.
Emission-free sources produced 74% of the EU’s electricity between January and June, 50% of which came from renewable sources such as wind and solar, and 24% from nuclear power, industry association Eurelectric said.
“Electricity generation in Europe has never had such a low carbon profile before,” Kristian Ruby, secretary general of Eurelectric, told Reuters.
Coal produced 9% of the EU’s electricity and gas 13%, the lowest shares for either fossil fuel for the same period to date.
The main driver of the evolution of the European energy mix is the rapid installation of renewable energy production capacities. The EU has built 56 gigawatts of new solar capacity in 2023 – the highest figure ever achieved to date – and 16 GW of new wind capacity.
However, electricity demand in Europe has also declined, allowing green energy sources to cover a greater share of the overall mix. During the first half of this year, EU electricity demand decreased by 5.8% compared to the same period in 2021.
Energy prices in Europe hit record highs in 2022 after Russia cut gas deliveries to Europe. The resulting energy crisis forced industries and consumers to use less energy to reduce their bills – with some industries having not yet returned to their pre-crisis production levels, their energy consumption fell .
Increasing renewable energy will help Europe meet its climate targets and reduce its reliance on imported fossil fuels. However, there are signs that countries’ ageing electricity grids are struggling to cope with the changing energy mix.
Last month, Belgium’s power grid operator, Elia, warned that Belgium’s recent increase in solar power generation capacity would lead to periods of surplus cheap energy this summer, making it more difficult network balancing.
Mr Ruby urged policymakers to invest in upgrading electricity networks to cope with larger shares of renewable capacity, including adding storage capacity to absorb cheap excess energy so it is not wasted.
“We need physical development of the network urgently,” he said. (Reporting by Kate Abnett; Writing by David Holmes)
