Renewables Overtake Fossil Fuels for Electricity Generation in Europe

The decarbonisation of Europe’s electricity systems has reached a new milestone, with renewables outstripping fossil fuels for generation for the first time.

According to Ember and Agora Energiewnede’s fifth annual report monitoring the electricity transition, renewables generated 38.2% of the continent’s power in 2020, while fossil fuels contributed 36.97%.

As renewables soared and electricity consumption fell due to the coronavirus pandemic and national lockdowns, coal was pushed to the sidelines. 2020 saw the steepest fall in coal generation ever, 20% in a year, and records including the UK’s nearly 68 days without coal power between April and June. 

Overall, coal generation has halved in Europe since 2015 and the continent is expected to phase it out entirely by 2030—six years after the UK’s deadline.

The drop in gas generation was more modest, at 4%, as gas plants picked up the slack from nuclear power, which declined 10% amid plant closures and maintenance. However, these technologies are also expected to be increasingly sidelined by cleaner, cheaper renewable generation in the coming years.

Dave Jones, senior electricity analyst at Ember, said: “Rapid growth in wind and solar has forced coal into decline but this is just the beginning. Europe is relying on wind and solar to ensure not only coal is phased out by 2030, but also to phase out gas generation, replace closing nuclear power plants, and to meet rising electricity demand from electric cars, heat pumps and electrolysers.”

Increased reliance on renewables made Europe’s electricity 29% cleaner in 2020 than it was in 2015, with carbon intensity down to 226g of CO2 per kWh.

Renewables outpaced fossil fuel generation in three separate countries as well, including the UK, where the carbon intensity of the electricity grid averaged 181gCO2/kWh, and Germany and Spain.

Renewable generation was up 4% across the continent from 2019, driven by a 9% rise in wind generation and a 15% rise in solar generations. Both technologies were boosted by increased capacity and favourable weather conditions last year, but also have made up all of the renewable growth in Europe since 2015, after the growth of bioenergy and hydrogenation stalled.

However, the report cautions that growth in the renewables sector is still too slow to meet the continent’s climate deadlines, particularly if power consumption increases to support electric vehicles and electric heating. Wind and solar generation must triple if Europe is to hit its intermediary target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 and achieving climate neutrality by midcentury, Ember and Agora Energiewande said.

Europe must produce 100TWh more of renewable power than the previous year each year of the next decade, the report says.

In comparison, average renewable growth was just 38TWh between 2010 and 2020, although more recent years showed stronger growth, with generation up by 51TWh in 2020.

However, European countries’ current plans will only add around 72TWh of wind and solar generation each year through the 2020s and must be overhauled to provide more renewable capacity and generation faster, the report says.

Patrick Graichen, director of Agora Energiewende, said Europe can’t affordable to complacent about the decarbonisation of its electricity grids and the rollout of renewables.

“The European Green Deal – our response to the climate crisis—requires some 100TWh of annual additions of renewables, a doubling of the deployment speed seen in 2020. Post-pandemic recovery programmes thus need to go hand-in-hand with accelerated climate action.”