EU: Renewable energy was the biggest source of electricity in 2020

PanARMENIAN.Net - Renewable energy became the biggest source of electricity in the European Union in 2020, beating fossil fuels for the first time, The Verge reports.

Germany and Spain also hit that milestone individually last year — so did the UK, which officially left the EU in January 2020.

Renewables powered 38 percent of electricity in the EU last year, according to a report released Monday, January 25 by energy think tanks Ember and Agora Energiewende. That gives renewable energy a narrow lead over fossil fuel-fired generation, which accounted for 37 percent of Europe’s electricity. The remaining quarter comes from nuclear energy.

The European Union recently set a goal of roughly halving its carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 (compared to 1990 levels) and virtually eliminating them altogether by 2050. That’s in line with what United Nations scientists believe will be necessary to keep climate change at a relatively manageable level. Europe will need to double the speed at which it deployed renewables in 2020 to fulfill that EU commitment, according to Graichen.