In EU, Solar Power Overtakes Coal-Fired Generation in 2022

The European Union, struggling with a difficult and costly energy transition, can celebrate some first important results, such as photovoltaic technologies overtaking hard coal burning in electricity generation. This occurred in 2022, as evidenced by Eurostat data. In that year, solar power generated 210,249 GWh, and hard coal produced 205,693 GWh in total EU electricity.

Poland and the Czech Republic remain the only two hard coal producers in the EU, and only Warsaw uses it as its main source for power generation. “Lignite, a category of coal with lower energy intensity, is used to generate electricity in 9 EU countries, and 241,572 GWh of electricity was produced with it,” Eurostat says.

Despite this, imports of hard coal increased in 2022 when sanctions against Russia came into effect, which caused coal imports to fall by 45% year-on-year. In any case, Russia remains the EU’s main supplier with 24%, ahead of the USA (18%) and Australia (17%). At the same time, the EU’s level of dependence on coal imports reached 74.4%, which is absolutely the highest. But it is still lower than in oil and gas that exceed 97%. The growth relative to 2022 is due to a temporary increase in inventories.

In 2023, preliminary data confirms a further decline in coal production and consumption: 274 million tons (-22% compared to the previous year) and 351 million tons (-23%). In 2023, two-thirds of the coal consumed in Europe came from Germany (37%) and Poland (27%).