Solar overtook coal in the European Union's electricity production in 2024, with the share of renewables rising to almost half the bloc's power sector, according to a report released Thursday.
Gas generation, meanwhile, declined for the fifth year in a row and fossil-fuelled power dipped to a "historic low", climate think tank Ember said in its European Electricity Review 2025.
"The European Green Deal has delivered a deep and rapid transformation of the EU power sector," the think tank said.
"Solar remained the EU's fastest-growing power source in 2024, rising above coal for the first time. Wind power remained the EU's second-largest power source, above gas and below nuclear."
Overall, strong growth in solar and wind have boosted the share of renewables to 47 percent, up from 34 percent in 2019.
Fossil fuels have fallen from 39 to 29 percent.
"A surge in wind and solar generation is the main reason for declining fossil generation. Without wind and solar capacity added since 2019, the EU would have imported 92 billion cubic metres more of fossil gas and 55 million tonnes more of hard coal, costing €59 billion," the report said.
According to Ember, these trends are widespread across Europe, with solar power progressing in all EU countries.
More than half have now either eliminated coal, the most polluting fossil fuel, or reduced its share to less than five percent of their energy mix.
But Rosslowe cautioned much work remains.
"We need to accelerate our efforts, particularly in the wind power sector," he said.
Europe's electricity system will also need to increase its storage capacity to make the most of renewable energies, which are by definition intermittent, he added.
In 2024, plentiful solar energy helped drive down prices in the middle of the day, sometimes even resulting in "negative or zero price hours" due to an overabundance of supply compared to demand.
"A readily available solution is a battery co-located with a solar plant. This gives solar power producers more control over the prices they receive and helps them avoid selling for low prices in the middle of the day," the report said.
The think tank suggested consumers could reduce their bills by shifting usage to periods of abundance (smart electrification), while battery operators could earn revenue from buying power when prices are low and selling it back when demand peaks.
Batteries have advanced significantly in recent years, with installed capacity across the EU doubling to 16 GW in 2023, compared with 8 GW in 2022, according to Ember.
But this capacity is concentrated in just a small number of countries: 70 percent of existing batteries were located in Germany and Italy at the end of 2023.
There are some interesting early pilot projects where long term energy storage is being tested.
Current EV batteries are not even close to being suitable for grid energy storage, so we need something completely different for that. It’s probably going to take a long time before anything viable gets mass produced, which means that at the moment we’re stuck with internment renewables and polluting fossil fuels.
What do you mean?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-11-15/vehicle-to-grid-v2g-electric-vehicle-technology-soon-here/104498552
It can definitely store more than enough to power a household over night, for some people potentially a week, If I use 10kwh a day and have an 80kwh+ size EV battery it will definitely provide me with enough cheap power for a week and complimented every time the sun comes out
I still don't understand why there aren't great big fat energy pipes connecting Europe to Algeria and getting in a whole ton of that year round cheap sun energy
EV batteries are not ideal for grid energy storage due to:
Unnecessary features: High energy density is essential for vehicles but not for stationary grid storage. That feature doesn't come for free, so why pay for it if you don't need it. An industrial scale grid energy facility could be located outside the city where land is cheap. Who cares if the facility takes as much space as a paper mill or a mine site. Besides, these batteries aren't going anywhere, so who cares if they weigh several tonnes each.
Cost efficiency: EV batteries are expensive per unit of capacity. Grid storage requires massive amounts of cheaper alternatives. Various industries need a lot of energy, so the storage demand is also massive. This means that a battery facility of functional size that uses normal NMC batteries is going to cost a fortune. Cheaper alternatives such LFP would make more sense.
Material scarcity: The rare materials used in EV batteries (like lithium) would be challenging to scale up for grid-level storage needs. Households are only a small slice of the pie, while factories and other types of industries take the rest. We really need to use materials that are dirt cheap and easily available, so even LFP isn't going to cut it long term.
Current NMC and NCA batteries used in cars should be good enough for the energy needs of a single house, but the rest of society needs an industrial scale solution. There are several technologies that look promising, but they aren't quite production ready just yet. I'm really looking forward to seeing how redox flow batteries develop in the future. There are also some interesting battery chemistries such as sodium-ion, oxygen-ion, magnesium-ion, and lithium-sulfur.
Small counterpoint to yours; soon there will be only EVs it seems. So availability / features / suboptimal fit for purpose is all moot when you have the car that can act as a battery…
In Belgium a lot of cars are basically part of compensation from employers ; furthering the use of those for overnight storage would make plenty of sense and be an easy way to kickstart the initiative a low cost for the users and would put a positive twist on those compny cars.
China and Europe are probably going to be fully electric sooner than the rest of the world. Getting there is already quite a task for the entire production chain. Ramping it up will take decades, and I'm still not entirely sure we even have the resources for it.
Yeah it seems to pick up traction and accelerate as of late; more and more new cars are EVs, charging stations are blooming everywhere even in my backward ardennes… so at least for us there seems to be enough resources. Fuck the poors thought because cheap EVs are still not affordable enough but that’s not the point we’re discussing. And the rest of the world we’ll see. But if this is part of the solution it’s happening and it’s nice.