Wind and solar energy break all records in the EU

The war in Ukraine has led to a rush to phase out Russian gas, but much more renewable energy is needed to meet climate targets. Since the outbreak of war earlier this year, about a quarter of the European Union’s electricity has come from energy, according to a new report. wind and sun. This is a record figure and the growth of wind and solar energy has saved the EU €11 billion in avoided gas costs, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine made gas purchases politically unsustainable.

Europe is still in the middle of an energy crisis that has been going on for years, as in 2021 the increase in demand for gas collided with the decrease in supply, along with the recovery of economic activity after the pandemic shutdown. This year, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has made the EU’s dependence on Russian gas even more apparent. Before the conflict, about 45% of the bloc’s gas imports came from Russia. He had already processed blocking plan transition to cleaner energy sources to mitigate the effects of climate change accelerated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The European Commission this year proposed a plan to end Russian fossil fuel use “well before 2030” and increase the share of renewables in the total energy mix to 45% by the same date.

19 countries broke their own records

Within the bloc of 27 countries, 19 countries broke their own records for electricity generation from solar and wind power, according to a new report from energy think tank Ember and climate think tank E3G. Over there Poland, which traditionally relied heavily on coal, saw the biggest increase with a 48.5 percent increase in solar and wind power generation. Also there Spain leads the ranking with the largest increase in terms of absolute production of electricity from solar and wind sources. It added 7.4 TWh, a 35% increase in electricity generation from wind and solar.

All this additional renewable energy helped offset the 21% drought-induced drop in hydropower generation in the European Union.
However, the road to achieving predetermined goals is very long. While wind and solar generated about a quarter of the EU’s electricity mix between March and September this year, gas continued to provide about a fifth of the block’s electricity. The energy crisis has also prompted some countries to review their nuclear power plans.

Over there Germany, which was expected to shut down its last nuclear plants by the end of this year, now says it will keep the plants running until mid-April next year. War is not the only cause of Europe’s new dependence on renewable energy. According to a report released on November 3 by the NGO World Resources Institute, the world is currently on track to reduce global warming carbon emissions by just 7% by 2030 compared to 2019 levels.Paris Agreement however, we must be able to reduce emissions by 7.6% each year. This translates into much more solar and wind energy to deploy, in Europe and around the world.