{"id":424742,"date":"2026-01-22T00:48:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/424742\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T00:48:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:48:07","slug":"wind-and-solar-overtook-fossil-fuels-for-eu-power-generation-in-2025-report-finds-renewable-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/424742\/","title":{"rendered":"Wind and solar overtook fossil fuels for EU power generation in 2025, report finds | Renewable energy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wind and solar overtook fossil fuels in the European Union\u2019s power generation last year, a report has found<\/a>, in a \u201cmajor tipping point\u201d for clean energy.<\/p>\n

Turbines spinning in the wind and photovoltaic panels lit up by the sun generated 30% of the EU\u2019s electricity in 2025, according to an annual review. Power plants burning coal, oil and gas generated 29%.<\/p>\n

Beatrice Petrovich, an analyst at the Ember thinktank and the lead author of the report, said it was a \u201cmajor tipping point\u201d that was of strategic importance to the EU, which has grown increasingly panicked about its reliance on other countries for energy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe importance of this goes beyond the power sector,\u201d she said. \u201cThe danger of relying on fossil fuels looms large in destabilised geopolitics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Europe faces growing tensions with the US \u2013 its chief supplier of liquefied natural gas \u2013 over Donald Trump\u2019s desire to take over Greenland. At a summit in Davos on Tuesday, the US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, criticised Europe\u2019s adoption of solar and wind, arguing that its lack of domestic battery factories risked making it \u201csubservient\u201d to China.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you are going to be dependent on someone, it had better be your best allies,\u201d he said in a justification of the \u201cAmerica first\u201d approach that he encouraged other countries to emulate.<\/p>\n

A graph showing the percentage of electricity generation by means of production<\/a><\/p>\n

Analysts said the trend was driven by a boom in solar, which generated a record 13% of EU power. In five countries \u2013 including the Netherlands, which is not known for its sun \u2013 it provided more than 20%.<\/p>\n

Wind turbines generated slightly less than the previous year, the report found, but remained the second-largest source of electricity, responsible for 17% of EU power.<\/p>\n

The role of fossil gas increased by 8% \u2013 largely because of a weather-related drop in hydropower output \u2013 but remained well below its most recent 2019 peak, the report found. Coal-burning fell to a new historic low, accounting for less than 10% of EU power, most of it in Germany and Poland.<\/p>\n

Solar and wind were \u201cbecoming the backbone\u201d of Europe\u2019s power system, said Petras Katinas, an analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy<\/a> and Clean Air, who was not involved in the report.<\/p>\n

\u201cSolar alone grew by more than 20% in a single year, proving that clean power can scale faster than any conventional technology,\u201d he said. \u201cThe challenge now is not generation, but how quickly Europe can deploy grids, batteries, and flexibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Climate scientists and energy modellers have stressed that most of the electricity needed to power a carbon-free economy will come from rays of sunlight shining on panels and gusts of wind spinning turbines.<\/p>\n

But European countries have been slow to modernise electricity grids to incorporate large volumes of renewable energy, which varies during the day and is delivered by a distributed network of machines.<\/p>\n

However, the report found early signs that evening peaks in electricity demand \u2013 which typically require burning gas at great cost to bill payers \u2013 are starting to be met by batteries.<\/p>\n

The analysts suggest that Italy, which hosts one-fifth of the EU\u2019s operating battery capacity and has a large pipeline of planned projects, may be about to follow the same trajectory as California, where batteries routinely cover 20% of evening demand peaks and are crowding out gas.<\/p>\n

Petrovich said this could smooth price spikes. \u201cIf I were a policymaker or investor, I would seriously start questioning if plans for new gas plants are inflated \u2013 and act to avoid a burden for taxpayers and risk of stranded assets.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wind and solar overtook fossil fuels in the European Union\u2019s power generation last year, a report has found,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-424742","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}