Renewables Constitute 62% of the Novel Electricity Production Output Installed in 2009 in the EU

The Renewable Energy Snapshots annual report produced by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre indicates that renewable energy sources have accounted for about 62% of the total electricity production output installed in the EU during 2009.

The largest share has been 11.6% from hydropower, 4.2% from wind, 3.5% from biomass and 0.4% from solar. New capacity built during the same year amounted to 27.5 GW in the renewable sources category with wind power being 37.1%, photovoltaics being 21%, biomass being 2.1%, hydro being 1.4% and concentrated solar power being 0.4%. The rest of the categorization were 24% gas fire power stations, 8.7% coal fire power stations, 2.1 % oil, 1.6% waste incineration and 1.6% nuclear.

This report concludes that by the year 2020, around 1,400 TWh of electrical energy can be produced from renewable energy sources, if existing growth rates persist. This amounts to about 35 to 40% of the total EU electricity consumption and would fulfill about 20% of the target for the generation of energy from renewable energy sources. This study indicates that accelerated implementation and cost reduction will not depend on the time factor but on the volume of production.