In the first half of this year, EU’s energy share from renewable sources compared to fossil fuels was 30% to 27% respectively. This means that for the first time in history, more green energy was generated in Europe. Nearly half of the EU member states can boast of this achievement. In Poland, following a dynamic increase in solar energy production, the share of renewable energy sources has reached approximately 30%, while the coal share falls below 60%. Despite significant progress in the last two years, many aspects of the green transformation in the country need improvement. The motivation to accelerate change is the financial benefits – electricity bills and environmental benefits.
“The European Union currently generates 30% of its electricity from wind and sun, which is for the first time more than from coal and gas, which account for 27% of electricity. For the first time, we have a situation where wind and solar contribute more to the European Union’s energy mix than fossil fuels,” says Paweł Czyżak, analyst of the think tank Ember, the leader of the Central and Eastern Europe program.
Fossil fuel energy production in the first half of this year was 17% less than last year, and its share in the energy mix reduced by 6 percentage points – from 33% to 27%. The share of coal in electricity production decreased in the EU by 24%, and gas by 14%, despite a slight rebound in energy demand after two years of decline.
At the same time, wind energy production recorded an increase of 9.5%, and solar power – by 20%. Together with hydropower, the production increased by 21% over the year; renewable sources have already generated half of the EU’s energy. The previous record from last year was 44%.
“Denmark is a leader in renewable energy sources, a great potentate of wind energy. Denmark, Ireland, Portugal are the largest producers of wind power. The leaders of producing solar energy are Southern European countries: Greece, Spain and Italy, but surprisingly Hungary and the Netherlands are among the countries that produce the most electricity from the sun,” says the Ember analyst.
Rapid development of wind and solar energy was evident throughout the European Union. In the first half of the year, 13 out of 27 EU member states generated more electricity from renewable sources than gas or coal. Some countries managed to do this in the previous semester for the first time – Germany, the largest economy in the EU, Belgium, the Netherlands and Hungary, others are getting closer to this breakthrough. For example, Spain in May had a 50:50 share, which is a first of its kind in the history of the economy.
“The biggest growth in Renewable Energy Sources (RES) is from countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, but also Spain, Italy and Poland. We also still have very large increases in the field of solar energy in Hungary. So not only Western European countries are transforming very quickly, but also the countries in our Central Europe region,” emphasizes Paweł Czyżak.
In Poland, the production of energy from the sun was greater by 37% compared to the first half of 2023. Increases in the field of wind power were less impressive.
“Poland, at peak hours, when the wind is good and there is plenty of sun, already produces up to 70% of electricity from renewable energy sources, but these are, of course, peaks. When it comes to annual and semi-annual data, wind and sun produced up to 1/3 of Polish electricity, and this is again a record. When it comes to data for 2023, it was 27% of energy from RES and 61% of energy from coal,” says the expert.
In May of this year, it was already 33% and 57% respectively. We are therefore approaching the moment when a third of Poland’s energy will come from RES, and coal and gas will account for less than 60%.
“This is quite a significant change, because just 10 years ago we were producing 80% or even 90% of electricity from coal. So very quickly, literally within a few years, these proportions are reversing. It is very likely that towards the end of the decade, around 2030, it will be a half-and-half ratio or even better, hence 50% from RES, and maybe 30% from coal,” assesses Paweł Czyżak.
He emphasizes that in the second half of this year this trend should continue. Although in terms of the pace of transformation, we are slightly ahead of the set goals, we are already close to achieving the goal of 32% of energy from RES planned for 2030, there is still much to improve.
“RES in the Polish mix account for about 30%, and their share is increasing, although not fast enough. The Ministry [of Climate and Environment] supports the development of RES, in a few weeks we will show a project unlocking the development of onshore wind farms, and with subsequent programs of the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management (NFOŚiGW), we will support citizens in moving away from fossil fuels. We are investing in the modernization of transmission and distribution networks,” lists Hubert Różyk, spokesman for the Ministry of Climate and Environment, in a comment on Ember’s analysis.
“The question about next year is a bit more complicated because our opportunities to connect new RES capacities to the network are ending. There is hardly any space left in this network for new wind and solar installations. So here we need more decisive actions from network operators, regulators and the government to free up network connections for renewable energy sources and to introduce solutions such as energy storage or dynamic tariffs, which will facilitate system balancing and allow for further increases in RES capacity,” says Paweł Czyżak.
In the expert’s opinion, within the next decade we should become independent from fossil fuels in the power system, which by the mid-30s will be consuming trace amounts of coal and gas. A bigger challenge, however, is the decarbonization of other sectors of the economy, especially heating. Still, many heat and power plants are based on coal.
“The plans for their modernization or transformation are not so obvious. At the moment, the only idea is to convert coal plants into gas plants, so we are still dependent on the import of fossil fuels. I think that in the near future, the government has to not only focus on electricity, but also create a vision to transform all sectors of the economy, particularly heating, because this will also affect heating bills for households, which are still rising, and we would like them to decrease,” emphasizes the Ember analyst.
The still large share of coal and gas in energy production makes household electricity bills increase and they are higher than in countries with a majority of RES in the energy mix.
“Our analyzes from about three years ago indicated that a larger share of RES will result in savings for Poles in the bills. These are savings measured in hundreds of zlotys per year, so quite important. However, this scenario assumes that the RES share will increase to 60% by the end of the next decade, because savings on bills result from the fact that wind and sun are cheaper than coal, but their capacity must be large enough in the energy mix. Otherwise, if we have a situation like now, that is, coal is 60%, still some coal power plant must operate in the energy system, which is expensive and dictates prices throughout the system. But if there start to be moments when we don’t need coal to maintain the energy system at all, prices drop very sharply and this affects the bills,” explains Paweł Czyżak.
In addition to the financial effect, a gradual change in the EU energy mix also brings environmental benefits. The drop in the share of fossil fuels translated into a decrease in emissions from the energy sector by 17% annually, and compared to the first half of 2022, they were 31% lower. The decline from the last two years is even greater than that observed in 2020, to which COVID-19 and lockdowns contributed.
