Solar power helped the EU avoid €29 billion in gas imports this summer

Solar energy accounted for 12.2 per cent of the European Union’s electrical energy generated this summer season - the very best share on file, in line with a brand new report.

This energy would have price as a lot as €29 billion had it come from natural-gas burning crops, in line with analysts from vitality assume tank Ember.

Europe has seen energy prices soar over the previous months, fuelled by Russia’s conflict in Ukraine.

However issues might have been even worse if not for the file share of solar energy generated, in line with the brand new report revealed by Ember on Thursday.

In keeping with Ember’s analysts, photo voltaic technology within the EU hit 99.4 terawatt hours this summer season, a 28 per cent enhance from the 77.7 terawatt hours final summer season.

The EU generated 12.2 per cent of its electrical energy from photo voltaic between Might and August this yr, up from 9 per cent in the identical interval final yr.

The EU would have had to purchase one other 20 bcm (billion cubic metres) of fossil gasoline this summer season if not for the file share of solar energy generated, says the assume tank.

Based mostly on the day by day gasoline costs for Might to August, it calculates that this equates to €29 billion in gasoline prices.

What are the highest solar-producing nations within the EU?

Throughout the European Union, eighteen nations noticed file shares of vitality generated by solar energy this summer season, in line with Ember.

Ten member states generated over a tenth of their electrical energy from photo voltaic panels.

The very best shares have been seen within the Netherlands, with 23 per cent of its electrical energy generated by photo voltaic, adopted by Germany (19 per cent) and Spain (17 per cent).

“As Europe is rocked by the gasoline disaster, photo voltaic vitality brings some much-needed reduction,” says Paweł Czyżak, a senior analyst at Ember.

“Investments in photo voltaic capability have paid off. Each terawatt hour of photo voltaic electrical energy helped cut back our gasoline consumption, saving billions for European residents.”

Photo voltaic’s 12.2 per cent share of the electrical energy pie exceeded the share of wind (11.7 per cent) and hydro (11 per cent) within the EU’s energy combine this summer season.

Nonetheless this nonetheless places it 4 share factors shy of coal’s 16.5 per cent share.

What’s being performed to deal with Europe’s vitality disaster?

To deal with the vitality disaster, the European Fee’s president Ursula von der Leyen has revealed a sequence of proposals to curb hovering costs.

These embrace an EU-wide plan to scale back electrical energy consumption, a value cap on the surplus revenues made by renewables and nuclear vitality, a solidarity mechanism to seize the "large" and "sudden" income reaped by fossil gasoline firms, and a state help programme to inject further liquidity into struggling utility companies.

These proposals are anticipated to be thought of by vitality ministers from EU nations, who will meet on 9 September to debate find out how to ease the burden of hovering vitality costs.

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