London, 22 June – Modelling by energy think tank Ember reveals that Europe can achieve a clean, reliable and expanded power system by 2035, with a comparable overall cost to Europe’s current plans for a smaller and more polluting electricity supply. Upgrading the system and quadrupling growth in wind and solar capacity requires an additional upfront investment of €300-750billion. However, ditching expensive fossil fuels in favour of clean electrification will save Europe an estimated €1trillion by 2035, along with numerous benefits to climate, health and energy security.
The ‘New Generation’ study published today models the entire European electricity system, hour-by-hour and country-by-country. The study’s goal is to find the cheapest pathways to 2050 that are compatible with the Paris Agreement climate goal of limiting global heating to 1.5C. All pathways result in a clean power system by 2035 (95% low-emission, 70-80% wind and solar), backing up research by international bodies including the IPCC and IEA. For the first time, the study gives a detailed plan of how clean power can be achieved across all of Europe by 2035, including the EU27, UK, Norway, Switzerland and the Western Balkans. The report comes ahead of next week’s G7 meeting where leaders are expected to commit to ‘predominantly decarbonised’ electricity by 2035, in the wake of recent national commitments by the US, UK, Canada and Germany.
