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New Energy World magazine logo
New Energy World magazine logo
ISSN 2753-7757 (Online)

Solar power shines in EU bid to boost green energy

25/10/2023

9 min read

Feature

Rows of solar panels in foreground with distant view of airplane taking off Photo: Platon Baltas, EUDITI – Energy & Environmental Design
A 16 MW self-consumption PV system was commissioned at Athens International Airport in 1Q2023

Photo: Platon Baltas, EUDITI – Energy & Environmental Design

Unexpectedly high growth in solar power generation is putting solar photovoltaics (PV) front and centre of European efforts to expand its renewables sector. With investment in the electricity grids needed to transmit power to consumers, solar energy could go even further. Liz Newmark writes from Brussels, while Ioanna Niaoti reports on remarkable progress in Greece.

The expansion of solar power in the European Union (EU) will be an increasingly important element of the bloc’s efforts to meet its renewable energy goals, augmenting hydro and wind, European energy experts have stressed to New Energy World.

 

Their enthusiasm is backed up by the European Commission (EC), with an official from the EU saying this clean, flexible and fastest-growing energy source is central to the EU’s green energy transition. Indeed, its competitiveness as a source keeps improving, with solar power costs decreasing by 82% between 2010 and 2020.

 

In 2021, renewable energy sources made up 37.5% of gross electricity consumption in the EU, with wind and hydro power accounting for more than two-thirds and the remaining one-third generated from solar power (15.1%), solid biofuels (7.4%) and other renewable sources (7.9%), according to the Council of European Energy Regulators (CEER)’s Secretary General Charles Esser.

 

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