Despite a 0.7% increase in electricity demand in the first six months of the year – a reversal of the trend of the last two years – renewable energy managed to produce 30% of electricity, compared to 27% for fossil fuels, according to a report provided by energy and climate analysis platform Ember.
The contribution of fossil fuels fell by 17% compared to the same period in 2023, with coal falling by 24% and gas by 14%.
The direct consequence of this “booming EU electricity transition” is a drop in emissions in the first half of the year (-31% compared to the same period in 2022), which is “unprecedented in such a short period” .
Improvements in many countries
In total, 13 of the 27 EU member states have certified this change; 9 of them had already done it before (Spain, Austria, Denmark, France, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Portugal, Finland and Sweden) and 4 others did it for the first time (Germany, Belgium, Hungary and the Netherlands). Down).
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Mr Ember highlights the role of Germany, Europe’s main economic powerhouse and a country traditionally dependent on coal, which also completed the nuclear phase-out in spring 2023, although fossil energy production fell by 16% over the of the first half of the year.
In the case of solar energy, the report highlights the “strong increases in production” in the EU, citing the cases of Germany (with the installation of 4.5 new terawatt hours (TWh), up by 14%), followed by Spain (2.7 TWh, up 13%), Italy (2.6 TWh, up 17%) and Poland (2.4 TWh, up of 37%).
She also mentions the “sharp declines in fossil fuel production” in France, Belgium and “notably” in Spain, where “coal production has almost been eliminated and the increase in wind and solar production is increasingly supplanting gas production”, which had already fallen by 25% in the first half of 2023 and which has fallen by another 34% in the same period this year.
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A historic change
For Chris Rosslowe, the organisation’s senior energy and climate data analyst, “we are witnessing a historic change happening rapidly” and, if member states can maintain the current deployment, “we will really start to free ourselves from dependence on fossil fuels” in the EU.
To do this, he adds, “it will be necessary to implement policies focused on removing barriers to the integration of wind and solar energy,” which includes “adequate support” for grid connections, among other measures.
In a report published last April, this “think tank” already certified a global production of renewable energy similar to the European figure of 30% in 2023, thanks also to the acceleration of the growth of solar and wind energy.
This other document analyzed the electricity data of 215 countries to conclude that the world is facing “an imminent new era” in electricity production. EFEverde