The year 2020 wasn’t all about bad omens and the pandemic, as it was also a victory for sustainability and clean energy generation. For the first time in the history of mankind, Europe managed to generate more energy from renewables than from fossil fuels.
Ember and Agora Energiewende presented a report recently, which showed that last year 38% of the electricity in the European Union came from renewable energy sources.
This increase in clean energy is partially the result of the pandemic, as many people worked remotely and the demand for electricity decrease.
Europe
- 38% renewable sources
- 37% fossil fuels
- 20% nuclear
U.S
- 78% fossil fuels
- 12.5% renewable sources
- 8.9% nuclear
But also, 2020 was the year in which more solar and wind energy were generated than ever before. Fossil fuel still came in as a close second on the EU’s energy market, as 37% of the power generated came from it and the remaining percentage was represented by nuclear energy. The latter has seen a decrease as many large reactors were shut down across Europe.
The increase in solar and wind energy had another positive aspect, as coal power was also forced into decline and Europe is on the right track to becoming a clean energy powerhouse by 2030.
The plan is to reduce the continent’s carbon emissions by half until 2030 and fully eliminate it by 2050.
For the first time ever, Europe generated more energy from renewable sources than fossil fuels in 2020.
U.S. Renewable Energy
About 78% of the nation’s energy comes from fossil fuels, 8.9% from nuclear, and 12.5% from renewable sources. In 2019, renewables surpassed coal in the amount of energy provided to the U.S. and continued this trend in 2020. Wind and solar are the fastest growing renewable sources, but contribute just 4.6% of total energy used in the U.S
