In what analysts called a “milestone” for the clean energy transition, new data has found that more electricity was made from sunshine than coal in the EU last year.
According to data from climate thinktank Ember, Solar panels generated 11% of the EU’s electricity in 2024, while coal-burning power plants generated 10%. The role of fossil gas fell for the fifth year in a row to cover 16% of the electricity mix.
“This is a milestone,” said Beatrice Petrovich, co-author of the report. “Coal is the oldest way of producing electricity, but also the dirtiest. Solar is the rising star.”
Europe’s industrialisation was powered by coal but the fuel has pumped out more planet-heating pollution than any other energy source. Coal-burning in the EU power sector peaked in 2003 and has fallen by 68% since then.
At the same time, clean sources of electricity have boomed. Wind and solar energy rose to 29% of EU electricity generation in 2024, while hydropower and nuclear energy continued to rebound from the 2022 lows.
Read also: Report: Firefighters battle to keep upper hand on new wildfire north of Los Angeles
The report attributed the rise of solar – the fastest-growing power source last year – to a record amount of new panels, despite the region getting less sunshine than the year before.
“It’s good news that the increase in solar build is actually translating to a reduction in fossil fuel burn,” said Jenny Chase, a solar analyst at BloombergNEF, who was not involved in the report.
The report found the share of coal fell in 16 of the 17 countries that still used it in 2024. It said the fuel has become “marginal or absent” in most systems.
Germany and Poland, the two countries that burn most of the EU’s coal, were among those where there was a shift to cleaner sources of energy. The share of coal in Germany’s electricity grid fell 17% year-on-year, while in Poland it dropped8%, the report found.
Fossil gas also continued to experience a “structural decline”, falling in 14 of the 26 countries that use gas power, the report found.
The findings come despite a small increase in electricity demand after two years of steep decline brought on by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In response, the EU introduced a plan to save energy, find new fossil fuel suppliers, and speed up the shift to clean energy.
“Policy and markets in Europe have enabled renewables to drive down the shares of both coal and natural gas,” said Gregory Nemet, an energy researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-author of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
