24 ms·

In a First, Solar Was Europe's Biggest Source of Power Last Month

255 points by Brajeshwar 1y ago

toomuchtodo 1y ago
Ember source: https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/solar-is-eus-biggest-power-source-for-the-first-time-ever/ https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/solar-is-eus-bigges...
- slaw 1y ago
  Ember is a better source. EU is ahead of China and US. EU June Solar power generated 22.1% of EU electricity (45.4 TWh) China April solar power generated 12.4% of electricity (96 TWh) US March solar power generated 9.2% of electricity https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/wind-and-solar-generate-over-a-quarter-of-chinas-electricity-for-the-first-month-on-record/ https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/wind-and-solar-gener... https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/fossil-fuels-fall-below-50-of-us-electricity-for-the-first-month-on-record/ https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/fossil-fuels-fall-be...
  - csomar 1y ago
    I think the month matters for this comparison.
    - slaw 1y ago
      Yes, I couldn't find data for the same month.
  - IshKebab 1y ago
    It's crazy that the US generates so little from solar, given the vast sunny deserts they have available.
bryanlarsen 1y ago
Still a cherry-picked result, unlike California: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44512968 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44512968 But it's a good step along the way to a headline like the above.
- idontwantthis 1y ago
  The best part is that just a few years ago it was common knowledge that solar would only work in "sunny" parts of the world. Turns out everywhere is "sunny" when panels are cheap enough.
  - chupasaurus 1y ago
    The only thing that turns in this conversation is Earth and solar output in December would slightly differ.
    - Retric 1y ago
      This is where energy mixes and economics come into play. Dams provide most parts of the globe a lot of seasonal storage. It takes the same water if they average 10% over the year or 5% over 9 months and 25% over 3. Similarly, locations for wind farms often vary in the season they provide the most power. So the economic maximum around high solar productivity ends up compensating for it’s lower winter output.
      - SoftTalker 1y ago
        "Dams provide most parts of the globe a lot of seasonal storage" Is this true? I think it's the opposite, that dams and pumped hydrostorage of energy works in a few areas where the geography supports it, but (for example) in the plains of the USA it's not really possible. Why haven't we built a huge solar farm around the Hoover Dam to pump water back up to Lake Mead insted of letting it flow downstream.
        bryanlarsen 1y ago
Theodores 1y ago
Truth be told, Europe has no energy and it was only with the Ukraine crisis that I realised this. Germany has been turning cheap gas from Russia into expensive cars, glass and chemicals for decades without me noticing that was all the deal was. Europe just sucks in oil, gas, uranium and some coal from the rest of the world to give back what exactly? So it is no surprise that renewable energy is showing up as significant these days, particularly when so much manufacturing industry is closed down and exported overseas. The thing is that China and elsewhere in East Asia are burning those hydrocarbons now, so it is just globalization of the emissions. Regarding nuclear, the French have been kicked out of West Africa so no cheap uranium for them, paid for with the special Franc they can only print in Paris to obtain as much uranium as they need from Africa. The solar panels come from China so it is not as if Europe is leading the way in terms of tech. All Europe government bodies also want the bicycle these days, with dreams of livable neighbourhoods and cycling holidays for all. I doubt they care for solar panels or the bicycle, however, after the Ukraine crisis in 2022 it must be clear to some in Europe that there are no energy sources in Europe apart from a spot of Norwegian gas. When paying 4x for fracked LNG from Uncle Sam it must be an eye opener to them.
- myrmidon 1y ago
  > Germany has been turning cheap gas from Russia into expensive cars, glass and chemicals for decades without me noticing that was all the deal was. You're overstating this a bit; there is a lot of coal in Europe (natural gas only got ahead of coal in Germany over the last years). > Europe just sucks in oil, gas, uranium and some coal from the rest of the world to give back what exactly? Finished products (like cars), some services, bit of tourism? What exactly is the problem here? Uranium mining in Europe would be perfectly viable, but no one wants to, because modern practices basically ruin groundwater quality for a long time (in-situ leeching). This applies to a bunch of other things, too; hard to justify mining cadmium in the Alps when you can just buy the finished product for cheaper while keeping your local environment intact. > The solar panels come from China so it is not as if Europe is leading the way in terms of tech. They used to produce lots of those in Germany-- it's just become way cheaper to buy them from China, especially after local subsidies ran out. You could make an argument that the germans shoulda tried to keep the industry somewhat alive for strategic reasons, though.
dexterdog 1y ago
The title should say electrical grid power. I'm willing to bet diesel was still the number one generator of all power.
mrtksn 1y ago
I'm very excited for solar. In Europe we don't have much fossil fuels, so our "hippiness" is not really a choice. I see some people campaigning against European green energy or the renewables and it doesn't make sense whatsoever unless you are aligned with Russia or USA. The coolest thing about solar is that the devices to capture the fusion energy in the skies are manufactured, unlike other options being built. I'm not anti-nuclear but I don't like its extremely long building phase. I sometimes fantasize about closed loop fully automatic solar PV panels factories that we can build on some remote area, just bring in the raw material and let it auto-expand using the energy it captures. As it grows geometrically at some point we can decide that we no longer want it to grow and start taking out the finished PV panels and installing them everywhere. Storage for the night probably wouldn't be that much of a problem, not everything needs to work 24/7 and for these things that need to work 24/7 we can use the already installed nuclear capacity and as the energy during the day becomes practically unlimited we can just stor it however we like even if its quite inefficient. With unlimited energy space wouldn't be a problem, we can dig holes and transfer materials into anything we need with the practically free daytime energy.
- cavisne 1y ago
  Campaigning for renewables is a literal Russian priority. https://www.dw.com/en/former-chancellor-schr%C3%B6der-sworn-in-at-russias-gazprom/a-1949349 https://www.dw.com/en/former-chancellor-schr%C3%B6der-sworn-... Solar & wind need to be backed by dispatchable power. Nuclear & Coal are not a good fit as they need to run at the same output always. Batteries are good for predictable outages (night time) but not for long periods of cloudy days with no wind. Gas (which in europe comes from Russia) is the only real option.
- ljlolel 1y ago
  Efficiency always matters. There’s always capex, ROI, and alternative opportunity costs for capital
  - mrtksn 1y ago
    It's OK to be inefficient sometimes.
Havoc 1y ago
Just needs more storage. Europe benefits a lot from diversification and transfers but there are still some pretty wild swings happening. e.g. The UK grid fluctuates between 25% and 75% renewable. That only works because there is significant gas capacity on hand plus France nuclear and Norway hydro can cover about 15% with interconnects. Only way to get this even more renewable is with plenty storage (or nuclear if you're of that persuasion)
- lysace 1y ago
  > Just needs more storage. It ”just” needs to be a magnitude or maybe two more economical. Context: Nordics, generally electric residential heating via heat pumps, week-long periods of very little sun + wind, typically when it’s the coldest. In the meanwhile we are rebuilding nuclear.
  - ViewTrick1002 1y ago
    Rebuilding nuclear? You mean like OL3 or the political noise with hundreds of billions in subsidies needed to get the projects started?
    - lysace 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - ViewTrick1002 1y ago
        I just dislike lavish handouts to an industry that has spent the past 70 years living on them experiencing negative learning by doing and still expects the public to pay for their insurance. The plan is essentially locking in energy poverty for generations due to the costs. Are you not worried about pissing away one of the largest advantages Scandinavia has in cheap electricity? And instead of investing in the future we’re going all in on a dead end industry.
layer8 1y ago
It also was the hottest June on record for Western Europe: https://climate.copernicus.eu/heatwaves-contribute-warmest-june-record-western-europe https://climate.copernicus.eu/heatwaves-contribute-warmest-j...
- giingyui 1y ago
  [dead]
ethan_smith 1y ago
Important to note that solar achieved this despite having lower capacity factors (~15-25% in Europe) compared to other sources, meaning the installed capacity is likely 3-4x what the headline number suggests.
ricardo81 1y ago
The LCOE of solar/wind is the cheapest but it does not seem to be common knowledge. The lack of common knowledge often is some kind of polarised political beliefs, from what I've seen Marginal pricing seems to be a large part of the problem when the general public do not see the benefit of this green revolution that's been going a long time. In the UK part of the payment is for social/environmental factors. It's about time the state awarded people that have already done that instead of paying marginal prices.
- phtrivier 1y ago
  LCOE is only fair with storage taken into account, which is hard because storage does not necessarily exist in capacities to make a comparison with non intermittent sources relevant. The joke is that the LCOE of solar is "Infinity / kWh" at night if the battery is empty, "-Infinity / kWh" at noon if the reservoir is full, and "NaN / kWh" when there is not enough câbles. That being said, the answer to "which carbon -light electricity source should we build ?" is "YES". I, too, long for the days where we have batteries massive enough to not even care any more.
  - gpm 1y ago
    This was true a couple of years ago. This is no longer true. Storage has become a lot cheaper very rapidly. The LCOE of solar with storage covering the night is now competitive.
    - phtrivier 1y ago
      Not entirely sure: everywhere I read about solar + storage, there are huge errors bars. Eg : https://www.lazard.com/media/eijnqja3/lazards-lcoeplus-june-2025.pdf https://www.lazard.com/media/eijnqja3/lazards-lcoeplus-june-... Solar+storage : from 50$/MWh to... 131$/MWh ! Go make a decision with something like that. The trend is clear, for sure, and it will make sense to extrapolate... Up to a point, as usual. (baring one of the "breakthroughs" that make it to the HN top page on e in a while and never materialize... Sigh)
    - IshKebab 1y ago
therealdkz 1y ago
[dead]
Someone 1y ago
As is usual in this kind of articles, the headline says “power” where it means “electricity”. FTA: “For the first time, solar was the largest source of electricity in the EU last month, supplying a record 22 percent of the bloc’s power.” Great result, but not “biggest source of power” yet.
- kraftman 1y ago
  I must be missing something, what other type of power would they be referring to when talking about solar?
  - bryanlarsen 1y ago
    Power used to drive the wheels of cars & trucks, energy used to heat houses.
    - diggan 1y ago
      I'm not sure this makes sense? If you have a solar system setup at home, with a battery, electric heating and also ev charger, then it's all the same thing. Or am I misunderstanding something?
      - Gud 1y ago
        No, this is an important distinction as different energy sources can be used to do the same thing. For example, you can run a boiler to do electricity and/or district heating. Very common in Sweden for example.
      - bdcravens 1y ago
        Electricity is a type of energy, but all energy isn't electricity. The total amount of energy is electricity + non-electricity energy, and solar doesn't yet equal to greater than 50% of that total.
athenot 1y ago
June and July have the most amount of sunlight so that makes sense. The numbers look a bit different in December. Still, diversity of energy production is a good thing. There's no one silver bullet. Solar + Wind + Nuclear + Fossil + Hydro all have their pros and cons. In particular, during hot and dry months, Solar will shine while Hydro will be a trickle of power (no pun intended), also affecting Nuclear and Fossil power plants near rivers.
exiguus 1y ago
The transformation paths for Germany show, that they want to dismiss fossil energy sources until 2035. In Germany renewable energy share is around 70%. Last nuclear-power plant was shut down 2023. [1] https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/remod_installed_power_2024/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/remod_installed_power_... [2] https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/renewable_share/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/renewable_share/chart....

255 points by Brajeshwar 1y ago

Ember source: https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/solar-is-eus-biggest-power-source-for-the-first-time-ever/ https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/solar-is-eus-bigges...

slaw 1y ago
Ember is a better source. EU is ahead of China and US. EU June Solar power generated 22.1% of EU electricity (45.4 TWh) China April solar power generated 12.4% of electricity (96 TWh) US March solar power generated 9.2% of electricity https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/wind-and-solar-generate-over-a-quarter-of-chinas-electricity-for-the-first-month-on-record/ https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/wind-and-solar-gener... https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/fossil-fuels-fall-below-50-of-us-electricity-for-the-first-month-on-record/ https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/fossil-fuels-fall-be...
- csomar 1y ago
  I think the month matters for this comparison.
  - slaw 1y ago
    Yes, I couldn't find data for the same month.
- IshKebab 1y ago
  It's crazy that the US generates so little from solar, given the vast sunny deserts they have available.

bryanlarsen 1y ago

Still a cherry-picked result, unlike California: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44512968 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44512968 But it's a good step along the way to a headline like the above.

idontwantthis 1y ago
The best part is that just a few years ago it was common knowledge that solar would only work in "sunny" parts of the world. Turns out everywhere is "sunny" when panels are cheap enough.
- chupasaurus 1y ago
  The only thing that turns in this conversation is Earth and solar output in December would slightly differ.
  - Retric 1y ago
    This is where energy mixes and economics come into play. Dams provide most parts of the globe a lot of seasonal storage. It takes the same water if they average 10% over the year or 5% over 9 months and 25% over 3. Similarly, locations for wind farms often vary in the season they provide the most power. So the economic maximum around high solar productivity ends up compensating for it’s lower winter output.
    - SoftTalker 1y ago
      "Dams provide most parts of the globe a lot of seasonal storage" Is this true? I think it's the opposite, that dams and pumped hydrostorage of energy works in a few areas where the geography supports it, but (for example) in the plains of the USA it's not really possible. Why haven't we built a huge solar farm around the Hoover Dam to pump water back up to Lake Mead insted of letting it flow downstream.
      - bryanlarsen 1y ago

Theodores 1y ago

Truth be told, Europe has no energy and it was only with the Ukraine crisis that I realised this. Germany has been turning cheap gas from Russia into expensive cars, glass and chemicals for decades without me noticing that was all the deal was. Europe just sucks in oil, gas, uranium and some coal from the rest of the world to give back what exactly? So it is no surprise that renewable energy is showing up as significant these days, particularly when so much manufacturing industry is closed down and exported overseas. The thing is that China and elsewhere in East Asia are burning those hydrocarbons now, so it is just globalization of the emissions. Regarding nuclear, the French have been kicked out of West Africa so no cheap uranium for them, paid for with the special Franc they can only print in Paris to obtain as much uranium as they need from Africa. The solar panels come from China so it is not as if Europe is leading the way in terms of tech. All Europe government bodies also want the bicycle these days, with dreams of livable neighbourhoods and cycling holidays for all. I doubt they care for solar panels or the bicycle, however, after the Ukraine crisis in 2022 it must be clear to some in Europe that there are no energy sources in Europe apart from a spot of Norwegian gas. When paying 4x for fracked LNG from Uncle Sam it must be an eye opener to them.

myrmidon 1y ago
> Germany has been turning cheap gas from Russia into expensive cars, glass and chemicals for decades without me noticing that was all the deal was. You're overstating this a bit; there is a lot of coal in Europe (natural gas only got ahead of coal in Germany over the last years). > Europe just sucks in oil, gas, uranium and some coal from the rest of the world to give back what exactly? Finished products (like cars), some services, bit of tourism? What exactly is the problem here? Uranium mining in Europe would be perfectly viable, but no one wants to, because modern practices basically ruin groundwater quality for a long time (in-situ leeching). This applies to a bunch of other things, too; hard to justify mining cadmium in the Alps when you can just buy the finished product for cheaper while keeping your local environment intact. > The solar panels come from China so it is not as if Europe is leading the way in terms of tech. They used to produce lots of those in Germany-- it's just become way cheaper to buy them from China, especially after local subsidies ran out. You could make an argument that the germans shoulda tried to keep the industry somewhat alive for strategic reasons, though.

dexterdog 1y ago

The title should say electrical grid power. I'm willing to bet diesel was still the number one generator of all power.

mrtksn 1y ago

I'm very excited for solar. In Europe we don't have much fossil fuels, so our "hippiness" is not really a choice. I see some people campaigning against European green energy or the renewables and it doesn't make sense whatsoever unless you are aligned with Russia or USA. The coolest thing about solar is that the devices to capture the fusion energy in the skies are manufactured, unlike other options being built. I'm not anti-nuclear but I don't like its extremely long building phase. I sometimes fantasize about closed loop fully automatic solar PV panels factories that we can build on some remote area, just bring in the raw material and let it auto-expand using the energy it captures. As it grows geometrically at some point we can decide that we no longer want it to grow and start taking out the finished PV panels and installing them everywhere. Storage for the night probably wouldn't be that much of a problem, not everything needs to work 24/7 and for these things that need to work 24/7 we can use the already installed nuclear capacity and as the energy during the day becomes practically unlimited we can just stor it however we like even if its quite inefficient. With unlimited energy space wouldn't be a problem, we can dig holes and transfer materials into anything we need with the practically free daytime energy.

cavisne 1y ago
Campaigning for renewables is a literal Russian priority. https://www.dw.com/en/former-chancellor-schr%C3%B6der-sworn-in-at-russias-gazprom/a-1949349 https://www.dw.com/en/former-chancellor-schr%C3%B6der-sworn-... Solar & wind need to be backed by dispatchable power. Nuclear & Coal are not a good fit as they need to run at the same output always. Batteries are good for predictable outages (night time) but not for long periods of cloudy days with no wind. Gas (which in europe comes from Russia) is the only real option.
ljlolel 1y ago
Efficiency always matters. There’s always capex, ROI, and alternative opportunity costs for capital
- mrtksn 1y ago
  It's OK to be inefficient sometimes.

Havoc 1y ago

Just needs more storage. Europe benefits a lot from diversification and transfers but there are still some pretty wild swings happening. e.g. The UK grid fluctuates between 25% and 75% renewable. That only works because there is significant gas capacity on hand plus France nuclear and Norway hydro can cover about 15% with interconnects. Only way to get this even more renewable is with plenty storage (or nuclear if you're of that persuasion)

lysace 1y ago
> Just needs more storage. It ”just” needs to be a magnitude or maybe two more economical. Context: Nordics, generally electric residential heating via heat pumps, week-long periods of very little sun + wind, typically when it’s the coldest. In the meanwhile we are rebuilding nuclear.
- ViewTrick1002 1y ago
  Rebuilding nuclear? You mean like OL3 or the political noise with hundreds of billions in subsidies needed to get the projects started?
  - lysace 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - ViewTrick1002 1y ago
      I just dislike lavish handouts to an industry that has spent the past 70 years living on them experiencing negative learning by doing and still expects the public to pay for their insurance. The plan is essentially locking in energy poverty for generations due to the costs. Are you not worried about pissing away one of the largest advantages Scandinavia has in cheap electricity? And instead of investing in the future we’re going all in on a dead end industry.

layer8 1y ago

It also was the hottest June on record for Western Europe: https://climate.copernicus.eu/heatwaves-contribute-warmest-june-record-western-europe https://climate.copernicus.eu/heatwaves-contribute-warmest-j...

giingyui 1y ago
[dead]

ethan_smith 1y ago

Important to note that solar achieved this despite having lower capacity factors (~15-25% in Europe) compared to other sources, meaning the installed capacity is likely 3-4x what the headline number suggests.

ricardo81 1y ago

The LCOE of solar/wind is the cheapest but it does not seem to be common knowledge. The lack of common knowledge often is some kind of polarised political beliefs, from what I've seen Marginal pricing seems to be a large part of the problem when the general public do not see the benefit of this green revolution that's been going a long time. In the UK part of the payment is for social/environmental factors. It's about time the state awarded people that have already done that instead of paying marginal prices.

phtrivier 1y ago
LCOE is only fair with storage taken into account, which is hard because storage does not necessarily exist in capacities to make a comparison with non intermittent sources relevant. The joke is that the LCOE of solar is "Infinity / kWh" at night if the battery is empty, "-Infinity / kWh" at noon if the reservoir is full, and "NaN / kWh" when there is not enough câbles. That being said, the answer to "which carbon -light electricity source should we build ?" is "YES". I, too, long for the days where we have batteries massive enough to not even care any more.
- gpm 1y ago
  This was true a couple of years ago. This is no longer true. Storage has become a lot cheaper very rapidly. The LCOE of solar with storage covering the night is now competitive.
  - phtrivier 1y ago
    Not entirely sure: everywhere I read about solar + storage, there are huge errors bars. Eg : https://www.lazard.com/media/eijnqja3/lazards-lcoeplus-june-2025.pdf https://www.lazard.com/media/eijnqja3/lazards-lcoeplus-june-... Solar+storage : from 50$/MWh to... 131$/MWh ! Go make a decision with something like that. The trend is clear, for sure, and it will make sense to extrapolate... Up to a point, as usual. (baring one of the "breakthroughs" that make it to the HN top page on e in a while and never materialize... Sigh)
  - IshKebab 1y ago

therealdkz 1y ago

[dead]

Someone 1y ago

As is usual in this kind of articles, the headline says “power” where it means “electricity”. FTA: “For the first time, solar was the largest source of electricity in the EU last month, supplying a record 22 percent of the bloc’s power.” Great result, but not “biggest source of power” yet.

kraftman 1y ago
I must be missing something, what other type of power would they be referring to when talking about solar?
- bryanlarsen 1y ago
  Power used to drive the wheels of cars & trucks, energy used to heat houses.
  - diggan 1y ago
    I'm not sure this makes sense? If you have a solar system setup at home, with a battery, electric heating and also ev charger, then it's all the same thing. Or am I misunderstanding something?
    - Gud 1y ago
      No, this is an important distinction as different energy sources can be used to do the same thing. For example, you can run a boiler to do electricity and/or district heating. Very common in Sweden for example.
    - bdcravens 1y ago
      Electricity is a type of energy, but all energy isn't electricity. The total amount of energy is electricity + non-electricity energy, and solar doesn't yet equal to greater than 50% of that total.

athenot 1y ago

June and July have the most amount of sunlight so that makes sense. The numbers look a bit different in December. Still, diversity of energy production is a good thing. There's no one silver bullet. Solar + Wind + Nuclear + Fossil + Hydro all have their pros and cons. In particular, during hot and dry months, Solar will shine while Hydro will be a trickle of power (no pun intended), also affecting Nuclear and Fossil power plants near rivers.

exiguus 1y ago

The transformation paths for Germany show, that they want to dismiss fossil energy sources until 2035. In Germany renewable energy share is around 70%. Last nuclear-power plant was shut down 2023. [1] https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/remod_installed_power_2024/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/remod_installed_power_... [2] https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/renewable_share/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/renewable_share/chart....