Environmental group Ember in London has reported that Renewable Energy has contributed a larger percentage to the European energy mix than fossil fuels or nuclear in the first half of 2020.
They state that in the first half of this year, approximately 40% of all the energy produced in the EU’s 27 countries came from renewable energy whereas fossil fuels accounted for 34%. The other 26% of energy production came from Nuclear and imports. Ember also reports that carbon dioxide emissions fell by 23%.
A continuing trend
This continues the trend of the last decade, as renewable energy generation gradually replaces fossil fuels based generation. In the first half of 2020:
- renewables generated 40% of the EU-27’s electricity, whereas fossil fuels generated 34%. Most of this is as a result of coal being replaced by wind and solar.
- Coal’s market share has halved since 2016 to just 12% of the EU-27’s electricity generation.
Every country that had coal to start with saw a fall in coal generation. - Wind and solar has increased its market share from 13% in 2016 to 21% in the first half of 2020.
- Hydro generated 13% of Europe’s electricity.
- Bioenergy generated 6% of Europe’s electricity.
Acknowledgements
This article and the graph used are based on an original report by Dave Jones and Charles Moore at Ember under CC BY-SA 4.0
Header image produced in-house using original photography by Jörg Peter
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