Three years into the Ukraine war, is Europe’s energy system cleaner?

2 comments

1. I d say definitely it accelerated the EU’s energy transition. Gas imports dropped hard, especially from Russia, and while some of that was replaced by LNG (mostly from the US and Qatar), renewables took a big leap forward.

   Since 2022, renewables jumped to 45.3% of the EU’s electricity mix, with a 4.1 percentage point increase in 2023 alone, the biggest annual growth since records started. Solar in particular exploded. In 2024, the EU generated more electricity from solar (11%) than from coal (10%) for the first time ever. Wind also overtook coal in the last quarter of 2023, producing 193 TWh compared to coal’s 184 TWh.

   The REPowerEU plan played a big role, doubling down on solar, wind, heat pumps, and efficiency measures to cut dependence on Russian energy. They even mandated solar installations on new buildings.

   That said, the transition wasn’t perfectly smooth. Energy prices spiked in 2022-23, and some countries fired up old coal plants as a backup. But overall, the EU came out of the crisis with a more resilient, cleaner energy system. Not to mention, cutting Russian fossil fuel revenue also had a geopolitical upside.

2. The latest Cleaning Up podcast is about this topic, host Michael Liebrich interviewing the new Deputy Greek Energy Minister.

   I found it reassuring that boring, well-informed, intelligent people are working in government to fix this.

   (If you’ve never watched before the host is playing a bit of Devil’s Advocate as he mentions later, asking tough questions that I think are a bit ignorant bubreflect what the average person hears on the news).

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