Last year’s strong reported performances for the share of clean energy in the UK and German energy mixes paint a rosy picture. It is the result of billions in investment and strong signals from Brussels and the COP series. Looking more broadly across the EU though, the share actually decreased by 17% from 2016 to 2017. Furthermore, due to lack of investment stretching back as far as 2011, the rate of growth has dropped significantly putting RES off course for its 32% share by 2030. That, coupled with a substantial increase in electricity demand on the near horizon, leaves an even bigger gap for other technologies like nuclear and gas – even existing coal – to fill.
Power generated by renewables topped coal in Germany for first time in 2018, an important milestone for its clean energy policy. Also in 2018, 40% of its electricity was generated by wind, solar, biomass and hydroelectric sources – up 4.3 percentage points on the previous year. With the substantial increase in demand that’s expected in coming years stimulated by the transition to EVs that’s great news.
Data from the Fraunhofer research group shows that the majority of clean power came from onshore and offshore wind systems (20.4% of total output) and solar (8.4%), the installed capacity of which
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Helmut Frik says
I think there is an error. There are two 40% targets for 2020 in germany.
The slash of CO2 emissions till 2040 which are likely to be missed due to low performance of traffic building, and in the last year also industrial sector, and a 40 % renewables share in power consumption, which was reached already in 2018 instead of 2020 due to the numbers of Fraunhofer (as it is written in the text). I am afraid both things have been mixed up in the text (At least it is unclear which 40% were meant in the sentence “But Germany is saying that they will miss that 40% goal for 2020.” A falling share of renewables in the power sector is not expected as far as I know, but it might grow slower than in the recent years.
Arasan Aruliah says
Hi Helmut. You think right! Well spotted. We’ve deleted that bit. Another way of correcting it would be to get Germany back on target for emissions! But pressing the delete button is much easier 😉