The drop in fossil fuel generation was driven by wind and solar growth as well as the recovery of hydropower.
Fossil fuels provided less than a quarter of the EU’s energy for the first time in April.
The good news comes from energy think tank Ember which found that the proportion of electricity generated by fossil fuels in the bloc fell to a record low of 23 per cent last month - a sharp drop of 22 per cent compared to April 2023 despite an increase in demand. It also surpasses the previous record low of 27 per cent from May 2023.
Wind and solar growth as well as the recovery of hydropower drove the fall in fossil fuel generation and increased the share of renewables in the electricity mix to a record 54 per cent.
Wind and solar alone generated more than a third of the EU’s electricity in April while gas and coal fell. Coal contributed just 8.6 per cent of the energy mix compared to 30 per cent in 2023. Gas provided 12.1 per cent of the EU’s electricity - a 22 per cent decline year-on-year.
In addition to cost (which I don’t have numbers for) there’s a question of efficiency: Geothermal heat it typically relatively “low temperature” heat, which makes for very inefficient power plants, especially in southern places like Italy and Greece, where there is little or no easy access to cold reservoirs (like the sea around Iceland).
Geothermal energy is the perfect source for heating cold places in winter, or otherwise heating places you want warm, but you need quite specific geological conditions for it to be an efficient means of producing electricity.