Renewables replace natural gas in Europe

• 8 years ago (2016-05-10)
• David Flin

Europe 1089 Renewables 776

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Germany’s Öko-Institut has published a research report on the EU’s power sector that indicates that as renewable electricity grows, coal power has remained constant, while electricity from natural gas is being offset.

Renewable electricity is up by more than a third within the EU from 2010 to 2015, having risen by 244 TWh. Coal power has remained relatively stable since 2010 at 300 TWh for lignite and 500 TWh for hard coal. Electricity from natural gas is down by 283 TWh over those years.

The study shows that Germany accounts for nearly half of the EU’s electricity from lignite, and the UK, Germany, and Poland covers more than half of the power from hard coal. The report states that the main challenge for natural gas in the power sector is price; the fuel, the report says, is uncompetitive at the current low carbon prices, even though natural gas turbines provide the flexibility that wind and solar power will need as a backup.

While production of wind power more than doubled from 2010 to 2015 in the EU from 149 TWh to 307 TWh, solar production more than quadrupled, from 23 to 101 TWh. Germany was by far the largest producer of renewable power at 193 TWh, with Italy, Spain, Sweden, and France at around 100 TWh.