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Earth EU

Wind and Solar Were EU's Top Electricity Source In 2022 For First Time Ever (carbonbrief.org) 57

AmiMoJo writes: Wind and solar supplied more of the EU's electricity than any other power source for the first time ever in 2022, new analysis finds. They together provided a record one-fifth of the EU's electricity in 2022 -- a larger share than gas or nuclear, according to a report by the climate thinktank Ember. Record additions of new wind and solar in 2022 helped Europe survive a 'triple crisis' created by restrictions on Russian gas supplies, a dip in hydro caused by drought and unexpected nuclear outages, the analysis says.

Around 83% of the dip in hydro and nuclear power was met by wind and solar -- and falling electricity demand. The rest was met by coal, which grew at a slower pace than some had expected amid a drop in fossil fuel supplies from Russia. Solar generation across the EU rose by a record 24% in 2022, helping to avoid --10bn Euro in gas costs, according to the findings. Some 20 EU nations sourced a record share of their power from solar, including the Netherlands, Spain and Germany. Wind and solar growth is expected to continue this year, while hydro and nuclear generation is likely to recover. As a result, fossil fuel power generation could drop by an unprecedented 20% in 2023 -- double the previous record observed in 2020, the analysis projects.

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Wind and Solar Were EU's Top Electricity Source In 2022 For First Time Ever

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  • Why do they group wind and solar? Can we group Coal and Gas to say it produced the most power? How about Hydro + BioEnergy? Nuclear plus anything else on that list is still number one.

    Makes no sense that they get to group two different sources of power and call it a winner against a collection of single sources.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @09:24AM (#63256593) Homepage Journal

      Because they are complementary renewable sources that are somewhat intermittent, and thus deemed unsuitable by some doubters.

      Generally speaking the plan is large wind farms and domestic solar. They tend to produce the most energy at different times, so are seen as supporting each other. One trick fossil fuel companies use is to consider them individually, to make their availability look worse.

      That said, you make a reasonable point that it makes sense to lump fossil fuels together in some sense. Gas is a little different as some of it is biogas, although not much. In any case, the use of both is decreasing, both for environmental reasons and for economic/geo-political ones.

    • by CEC-P ( 10248912 )
      Because they're both magical machines that you install and they spit out free money forever with no maintenance and no replacement plan needed in the budget...OH WAIT.
    • It makes sense from the standpoint of coming up with a BS clickbait headline. All the more reason to not RTFA....
  • Nothing like a war to motivate people.

    • Shortages motivate people. In the US, when gas prices go up the sales of economy cars and cars with great gas mileage go up. A year later prices are back down to normal low prices and sales of SUVs and commuter trucks goes up. And even then, the "high" gas price that motivated this was still much less than EU prices, or the prices in much of the world.

      • The EU rolls many taxes into gasoline and diesel. The cost of the fuels themselves is about the same for the EU and the US. The American government tries its best to keep prices low to please the citizens. EU governments want high fuel prices for their own reasons.
  • That itâ(TM)s mostly because of Putin.. bad historyâ(TM)s putin song was kinda prophetic..
  • ...is supposed to help us transition to renewables. How is it that a war that has forced a sharp drop in gas supply has actually sped up the rate of transition to renewables? Can someone please run those pro-gas arguments by me one more time because I'm confused right now.
    • I assume the renewables had been planned and started construction long ago.

      The pro-gas argument I think is that it can easily replace coal, either with a relatively cheap new plant or even converting existing ones. Natural gas emits about half the CO2 and generally burns cleaner.

      I'm not one of the "pro-gas" people, but that seems to make sense as long as it's not used to derail other plans. Which of course is quite likely with the oil&gas lobby being what it is.

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