There has been no return to coal: fossil energy is declining in the EU
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One year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we can venture an initial assessment of the impact that Putin’s aggression has had on the mix of energy sources in Europe. Many observers, including the International Energy Agency, have suggested in recent months that the EU’s consumption of fossil fuels, and in particular coal, was increasing as a reaction to the ongoing energy crisis.
The data collected by Lauri Myllyvirta, an attentive analyst at the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, show however that this increase has not occurred. Consumption of both gas and coal, according to Myllyvirta’s analysis, fell sharply in the second half of 2022 and coal use is set to decline further in 2023.
But let’s start from the beginning. EU coal consumption and related CO2 emissions plummeted in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic and began to recover from early 2021 until the summer of 2022. In addition to the rebound in electricity demand post- pandemic, another reason for the recovery of coal until summer 2022 was the widespread drought affecting hydroelectric production, as well as the severe but temporary technical problems at French nuclear power plants.
The fact remains that coal consumption and related CO2 emissions reached their peak remaining well below pre-Covid levels and have started to decline again since September 2022. In November, the production of electricity from coal reached the lowest levels for at least thirty years, returning to the normal range of a now constant and unstoppable decline.
Declining trend for fossil fuels
With the resumption of hydroelectric and nuclear generation and the sharp increase in the continent’s solar and wind capacity in the meantime, coal consumption is set to decline further this year, according to Myllyvirta. The record prices of fossil fuels caused by the cut of Russian supplies to Europe, in fact, have caused a significant increase in investments in clean energy.
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