{"id":445010,"date":"2026-01-31T11:06:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T11:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/445010\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T11:06:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T11:06:18","slug":"chart-in-the-eu-wind-and-solar-surpass-fossil-fuels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/445010\/","title":{"rendered":"Chart: In the EU, wind and solar surpass fossil fuels\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2025, wind and solar produced more electrons for the EU than fossil fuels did, per a\u00a0new Ember report<\/a> \u2014 the first time that\u2019s ever happened over the course of an entire year.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a\u00a0watershed moment. Back in 2015, just under 13% of the EU\u2019s electricity was generated from whirling wind turbine blades and sun-soaking photovoltaic panels. Fossil fuels, meanwhile, produced almost 43% of its power; coal alone accounted for nearly one-quarter of electricity.<\/p>\n

Flash forward to 2025: The share of electricity from fossil fuels dropped below 29% while that from wind and solar jumped above\u00a030%.<\/p>\n

Though wind still produces more power for the EU than solar does, it was the blistering growth of the latter that drove last year\u2019s achievement. In fact, wind generation actually declined slightly in 2025 from the year prior, but that was offset by a\u00a020% increase in electricity from solar. All 27 EU nations saw solar generation grow last year \u2014 and globally, seven EU nations are among the countries that depend most on solar for electricity.<\/p>\n

That leaves gas, a\u00a0fuel that provided 16.7% of the EU\u2019s power last year but which the region produces little of.<\/p>\n

Europe had heavily depended on gas from Russia<\/a> until 2022, when the nation invaded Ukraine and prompted a\u00a0reckoning around domestic energy security in the EU. The bloc is now aiming to quit Russian gas completely<\/a> by next year. It has turned to two sources to make up for that lost energy: domestic renewables and imported liquefied natural gas from the U.S.<\/p>\n

But now, with the Trump administration destabilizing the EU-U.S. relationship, the bloc would like to reduce reliance<\/a> on the U.S., too. The upshot: Expect renewable energy<\/a> to keep winning in Europe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2025, wind and solar produced more electrons for the EU than fossil fuels did, per a\u00a0new Ember…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-445010","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\/445010","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=445010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}