“10-year low” sounds impressive, but that could be the same as “down 3%”.
Not saying that’s the case here, but it’s easy to lie (or mislead) with numbers, especially in a headline.
The one silver lining to Putin’s war has been the rapid shift away from fossil fuels it generated.
LNG use is down, but so too is coal consumption. After a small *3.3%* bump in 2022, we saw around a 26% decline in 2023. Coal now accounts for just 13% of total electricity production in the EU. Power sector emissions are down ~19%. A massive change in just a year.
Some of this can be attributed to lower demand (-3% in 2022 & again -3% in 2023) but mostly we can thank the rapid and accelerating deployment of renewables which now cover about **44%** of electricity generation in the EU.
That puts the EU well ahead of their 2030 target (directive EU/2023/2413) of **42.5%**.
This is an environmental, economic, and national security win.
In Spain, the share of renewables in electricity production reached 54.3% in the fourth quarter of 2023. On top of that, 2023 was the first year ever renewable sources generated more electricity than non-renewables. The split was 50.3% to 49.7%
This trend will continue as a constant stream of new solar and wind projects is coming online.
3 comments
“10-year low” sounds impressive, but that could be the same as “down 3%”.
Not saying that’s the case here, but it’s easy to lie (or mislead) with numbers, especially in a headline.
The one silver lining to Putin’s war has been the rapid shift away from fossil fuels it generated.
LNG use is down, but so too is coal consumption. After a small *3.3%* bump in 2022, we saw around a 26% decline in 2023. Coal now accounts for just 13% of total electricity production in the EU. Power sector emissions are down ~19%. A massive change in just a year.
Some of this can be attributed to lower demand (-3% in 2022 & again -3% in 2023) but mostly we can thank the rapid and accelerating deployment of renewables which now cover about **44%** of electricity generation in the EU.
That puts the EU well ahead of their 2030 target (directive EU/2023/2413) of **42.5%**.
This is an environmental, economic, and national security win.
In Spain, the share of renewables in electricity production reached 54.3% in the fourth quarter of 2023. On top of that, 2023 was the first year ever renewable sources generated more electricity than non-renewables. The split was 50.3% to 49.7%
This trend will continue as a constant stream of new solar and wind projects is coming online.