Solar and wind power overtaking gas for the first time in Europe

European countries were forced to accelerate their renewable energy capacity after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sparked a global energy crisis. The EU’s REPowerEU plan aims to increase the share of renewables in final energy consumption overall to 45% by the end of the decade.

 A new report by energy think tank Ember shows that the EU’s green energy transition is already making a significant difference. Solar and wind power generated more than a fifth (22%) of its electricity in 2022, pulling ahead of fossil gas (20%) for the first time, according to the European Electricity Review 2023.

Europe also managed to avoid resorting to emissions-intensive coal power for electricity generation as a consequence of the energy crisis. Coal generated just 16% of the EU’s electricity last year, an increase of just 1.5 percentage points.

“Europe has avoided the worst of the energy crisis,” says Ember’s Head of Data Insights, Dave Jones. “The shocks of 2022 only caused a minor ripple in coal power and a huge wave of support for renewables. Any fears of a coal rebound are now dead.”

Ember’s analysis reveals that the EU faced a “triple crisis” in the electricity sector in 2022. “Just as Europe scrambled to cut ties with its biggest supplier of fossil gas, it faced the lowest levels of hydro and nuclear (power) in at least two decades, which created a deficit equal to 7% of Europe’s total electricity demand in 2022,” the report says. A severe drought across Europe, French nuclear outages as well as the closure of German nuclear outlets were responsible for the drop.

However, the record surge in solar and wind power generation helped compensate for the nuclear and hydropower deficit. Solar power rose the fastest, growing by a record 24% last year which almost doubled its previous record, with wind growing by 8.6%.

Forty-one gigawatts of solar power capacity was added in 2022, almost 50% more than the year before. Ember says that 20 EU countries achieved new solar records in 2022, with Germany, Spain, Poland, the Netherlands and France adding the most solar capacity.

The Netherlands and Greece generated more power from solar than coal for the first time.