Latest data shows that the European Union is stoking its power plants with fewer lumps of coal and barrels of oil and gas than it has ever recorded.
Several countries are said to have broken records for the share of their power that came from renewable sources of energy, the report found. Greece and Romania passed 50% for the first time and Denmark and Portugal broke 75%.
Gas prices shot up and the EU introduced emergency measures to cut demand after Russia invaded Ukraine last year. With winter also unexpectedly mild, demand for electricity fell 5% in the first half of 2023 compared with 2022.
A study from the clean energy thinktank Ember found that the 27 member states burned 17% less fossil fuel to make electricity between January and June 2023 than over the same period the year before.
The EU made 410TWh of electricity from sources that release planet-heating gases, which analysts say is the lowest level since 2015 – the first year for which they have monthly data – and “very likely” since 2000.
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The study also found that the drop in fossil fuel generation was driven by a fall in demand for electricity, as well as some growth in clean power.
“We’re glad to see fossil fuels down, but in the long-term it is not going to be sustainable to rely on the fall in demand to do this,” said Matt Ewen, who is a data analyst at Ember and author of the report. “We have to be replacing this energy rather than just expecting it to go away and not be used.”
The EU is said to have pledged to cut greenhouse gas pollution by at least 55% from 1990 levels by the end of the decade, and hit net zero emissions by 2050 to try to stop the planet heating. To get there, it will probably have to use less energy but more electricity than it does today, as more people heat homes and drive cars with electricity instead of fossil fuels.
The report further found that fossil generation in the first half of 2023 fell more than 20% in 11 EU countries and more than 30% in five of them.
At least fourteen countries saw their lowest total fossil generation on record for the period. In seven countries – Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Poland and Slovenia – fossil fuel burning hit its lowest levels this century.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
