Wind and sun broke records in Europe this year

Since war broke out earlier this year, around a quarter of the European Union's electricity has come from wind and solar, a new report has found. This is a record number, and the growth of wind and solar energy has saved the EU €11 billion in gas costs after the Russian invasion of Ukraine made buying Russian gas completely untenable politically.

Within the 27-nation bloc, 19 countries have broken their own records for solar and wind electricity generation, according to a new report released by the Ember Energy Institute and the E3G Climate Institute. Historically heavily reliant on coal, Poland saw the biggest jump with a 48.5% increase in solar and wind generation. Spain also led the group with the largest increase in terms of absolute electricity generation from solar and wind. It added as much as 7.4 TWh, which is a 35% increase in the production of wind and solar electricity. All that extra renewable energy also helped make up for a large 21 percent drop in hydroelectricity production in the European Union caused by the drought.

The Union was already preparing plans to switch to cleaner energy sources to limit the effects of climate change, but Russia's invasion of Ukraine accelerated them. Thus, the European Commission proposed this year a plan to end the use of fossil fuels from Russia "well before 2030" and to increase the share of renewable sources in its total energy mix to 45 percent by the same date.

There is still a long way to go to reach any of these goals. While wind and solar produced around a quarter of the EU's electricity mix between March and September this year, gas still provided around a fifth of electricity. The energy crisis has forced some countries to rethink their nuclear power plans. Germany, which was due to shut down its last few nuclear plants by the end of this year, now says the plants will be operational until mid-April next year.

The Green Agenda is high on Europe's agenda. And things are changing rapidly in Slovenia as well. Question or in the right direction?! Slovenia has an extremely poor electricity network, and the investment in modernization is estimated at 20 billion euros. from this it can be concluded that in Slovenia, instead of large solar power plants, we must enable 70 percent of households that live in their own buildings to equip their houses with solar power plants with energy storage. This would mean that they only take from the grid that energy that they do not manage to produce themselves. For 800,000 electric cars by 2040, which will double the current need for electricity, it will be impossible to bring the latter to households. Even if we manage to produce electricity in a green way. The solution is therefore micro household power plants with a storage tank. This method is the only one in Slovenia that enables a normal and sustainable transition to green energy. No special investments in infrastructure. A different approach will definitely be needed for urban centers, but for the rest of Slovenia this is a feasible solution.

For the transition of Slovenia, therefore, we need more favorable taxes for investments by companies and individuals in energy self-sufficiency. And, of course, state guarantees and interest-free loans for such projects.

Countries are also preparing for the United Nations climate conference in November, where they will analyze commitments from the 2015 Paris Agreement. According to a report published today by the non-governmental organization World Resources Institute, the world is currently on track to meet the 2030 reduce planet-warming CO2 emissions by 7 percent from 2019 levels. The world must reduce its emissions by 7.6 percent each year this decade to meet the Paris Agreement targets. That's a lot more solar and wind energy even in our small country!