Five years of progress

The European Green Deal delivered benefits beyond emissions reduction

2024 marks five years since the start of the European Green Deal, the EU’s landmark energy and climate policy package. Since its launch, wind and solar have surged, taking renewables to nearly half of EU electricity in 2024 and reducing dependency on coal and gas. In half a decade, the EU has made enough progress to prove that a deep transformation of the power sector is achievable, while also reducing an expensive fossil import bill.

In December 2019, the launch of the European Green Deal introduced key policies to spur the EU’s clean electricity transition. In 2022, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and fossil price shocks, the EU further strengthened the bloc’s targets for wind and solar growth with the REPowerEU policy package.

These EU initiatives have contributed to a deep transformation of the bloc’s electricity sector. In 2019, renewables provided a third (34%, 979 TWh) of EU electricity, while fossil fuels provided 39% (1,130 TWh). By the end of 2024, renewables advanced to nearly half the EU mix (47%, 1,300 TWh), as fossil power fell to a historic low of 29% (793 TWh).

Between 2019 and 2024, the surge of renewable power was widespread across the bloc. In this time, the number of countries where renewables produce more electricity than fossil fuels rose from 12 to 20.

As a result of its power sector transformation, the EU has cemented its position as a leader in clean power. The emissions intensity of EU electricity generation fell 26% over the last five years, to 213 gCO2 per kWh. This was a steeper decline than other major economies, such as the US, where the emissions intensity fell by 13% over the same period, to 361 gCO2 per kWh in 2024.

The surge of renewable power in the EU was driven by the meteoric rise of homegrown wind and solar. From 2019 to 2024, wind and solar’s share of the EU electricity mix increased from 17% to 29%. Solar generation increased by 179 TWh (+144%) in this period, an amount equivalent to the annual production of over 50 coal power plants, and almost tripled its share of EU generation from 4% in 2019 to 11% in 2024. Wind generation increased by 110 TWh (+30%) over the same period, reaching a 17% share of EU electricity in 2024, up from 13% in 2019.

The consistent growth of wind and solar distinguishes them from the other main sources of clean power in the EU. While installed solar capacity almost tripled from 120 GW in 2019 to 338 GW in 2024 and wind capacity grew by 37% from 169 GW to 231 GW over the same period, hydropower capacity remained flat at 130 GW and the nuclear fleet actually decreased from 110 GW to 96 GW. Over the past five years, nuclear and hydro generation fluctuated due to weather conditions and outages.

Since the launch of the European Green Deal, rising wind and solar has driven a decline in fossil generation. Wind and solar installed in the past five years have cumulatively avoided 15% of fossil generation (736 TWh) over the period (see Methodology). This is equivalent to around 460 million tonnes of CO2, roughly the same as power sector emissions produced by Italy since 2019.

Beyond reducing emissions, growth in wind and solar spurred on by the European Green Deal has delivered huge benefits to the EU through reduced energy costs and enhanced security.

Without wind and solar capacity additions over the first five years of the European Green Deal, the EU would have spent an additional €59 billion on fossil fuel imports for power generation: €53 billion for fossil gas and €6 billion for hard coal.

The total avoided gas imports of approximately 92 billion cubic metres is equivalent to around 18% of gas consumed in the power sector in the EU since the end of 2019. The avoided coal imports of 55 million tonnes is equivalent to 23% of hard coal consumed in the EU power sector in that same period.

In 2024 alone, without wind and solar installed since the previous year, EU power sector gas and coal consumption would have both been 11% higher.

Over the first five years of the European Green Deal, the importance of coal in the EU power mix fell significantly: from 16% of the EU power mix in 2019 to less than 10% five years later. The steep falls in coal power over the last two years cancelled out the temporary upticks in 2021 and 2022 resulting from the gas crisis. Over the past five years, Austria, Sweden and Portugal phased out coal from their electricity mix. In 2024, coal provided less than 5% of power generation in 16 countries, ten of which had no operating coal power plants. This is a change from 2019, when the dirtiest fuel provided less than 5% of power generation in 12 countries and seven were coal-free.

A new wave of coal plant closures is imminent: another 11 EU countries have announced a complete phaseout of coal from their electricity mix within the next five years. This means that only seven countries will still be using coal by 2030, with at least 34 GW of the remaining 101 GW of operating coal plants closing by that date.

Since the start of the European Green Deal, gas power has been consistently declining. The decline was widespread, with gas decreasing its share in the mix of 19 out of 27 EU Member States between 2019 and 2024. In 2019, fossil gas provided 20% of EU power (569 TWh) and was the second-largest source of EU electricity after nuclear. By 2024, gas had fallen by a quarter, dropping into third place with a share of 16% (430 TWh).

The decline of gas power has been a major factor in reducing EU gas consumption since the energy crisis, and reducing the EU’s dependency on Russian energy. Total EU gas demand fell by 20% in the past five years, with about a third of this decline occurring in the power sector. In 2024, overall gas demand is expected to have remained almost stable, as reduced gas burning for power offset a recovery in the industrial sector (see Methodology).

Despite this progress, Russian gas still accounted for 14% of total EU gas consumption in 2024 (down from around 50% in 2019). In fact, gas imports from Russia (including pipeline and liquefied natural gas) increased by 18% in 2024, from 38 bcm in 2023 to 45 bcm, mainly due to increased imports into Italy (+4 bcm), Czechia (+2 bcm), and France (+1.7 bcm) (see Methodology). The power sector alone consumed approximately 88 bcm of gas in 2024. Of this, approximately 10 bcm (12%) was from Russia, providing an estimated €4 bn in revenue.

In an effort to bring Russian gas imports to zero, the EU has not only been reducing gas consumption, but also diversifying gas sources. This led to more reliance on imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG), which accounted for 38% of imports in 2024, up from 22% in 2019. This reliance is only likely to deepen as Russian gas exports to Europe via Ukraine stopped on the 1st of January 2025.

Continuing to reduce EU gas demand in all sectors – including power – will deliver further strategic, economic and climate benefits. It will minimise the exposure of households and companies to the inherent volatility and price shocks of the global LNG market. Additionally, it will avoid negative climate impacts, as burning US LNG is as polluting as burning coal. Finally, it is fully aligned with the EU’s security objective to end reliance on Russian energy.