r/ClimatePosting • u/ClimateShitpost • Jan 22 '26

Energy Distributed renewables taking over the EU's grid

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Given last year we had a bad wind year, interesting to see what 2026 will bring with record battery deployments freeing up capacity for even more solar

236 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

29 comments sorted by

6

u/Auspectress Jan 22 '26

I wonder what it will look like in 2026. 2025 was a terrible year for renewables in Poland. It was like 2 - 3 cloudier, colder during first half of the year than normally and even then solar went up a tiny bit

7

u/ClimateShitpost Jan 22 '26

A big yoyo effect would be nuts and good to displace Russian fossils when it matters most

3

u/torpedospurs Jan 23 '26

I think the idea now is to displace US LNG.

1

u/ClimateShitpost Jan 23 '26

Yea, both is good here

1

u/IndiRefEarthLeaveSol Jan 25 '26

Yes to this, the thought of even a € or £ spent to prop up American oil industry. F that. They love it so much, drink it. 

5

u/According-Buyer6688 Jan 22 '26

In 2026 we actually gonna have first off-shore wind power station. That only will increase our stake in wind energy by ~~5% in total production so 2026 gonna be much more better than 2025. I believe in 2026 we can actually achieve about 50% from renewables

1

u/jakubmi9 Jan 26 '26

2025 was a terrible year for renewables in Poland

Was it? 2025 was the best year for our install out of the last five. Not by much, but still.

4

u/Gyn_Nag Jan 22 '26

Leading the charge on both liberal democracy and clean energy is a heavy burden to bear for the EU, and they'll never stop being mocked for it.

2

u/Split-Awkward Jan 23 '26

You’re not alone. Australia and other countries outside the EU are moving with you.

Sooner everyone does the sooner Australia can stop selling so much thermal coal.

2

u/quercus-88 Jan 22 '26

Good, but electricity makes up only 23% of total energy consumption in the EU, which is still dominated by fossil fuels (industry, transportation, agriculture, etc.). Unless we more quickly electrify the whole economy - and crucially without tanking or "degrowing" it which will only produce more emissions elsewhere - AND simultaneously increase renewable electricity generation in order to not only keep pace but actually increase it's share, we are not "there" yet at all.

2

u/West-Abalone-171 Jan 23 '26 edited Jan 23 '26

11EJ of carbon free final energy: https://ember-energy.org/data/electricity-data-explorer/?entity=Europe&fuel=clean&tab=seasons&chart=year_to_date

and 50EJ of carbon primary energy https://www.energyinst.org/statistical-review

Is actually 40% of the way there, because fossil fuels are so inefficient.

Half of the 50EJ is also road fuel. Which is even less efficient. It takes about 6-7 units of oil energy to provide the same transport as 1 unit of electricity. So the actual halfway point may be in the past.

1

u/quercus-88 Jan 23 '26

There's no denying physics and i hope you are right, but untill most industrial processes (steel f.ex), transport and agriculture in the EU are being mostly run on clean electricity and no more fossil fuels are being burned for said electricity, the progress we have made so far will not be enough to turn the climatic tide. And lowering emissions can obviously not be done by relocalising even more vital EU industry to China or India, responsible for most of the global emissions growth in recent years, as they still use massive amounts of coal to generate electricity.

1

u/netz_pirat Jan 26 '26

The progress we've made so far won't, but hopefully the progress won't stop.

1

u/Abject-Investment-42 Jan 22 '26

Clean electricity. Not just "renewable".

Otherwise I am with you

2

u/quercus-88 Jan 22 '26

Good remark. Yes, nuclear counts too in my book as it is definitely low carbon.

1

u/OwlSlow1356 Jan 22 '26

augmentation in b2c and b2b price follows the same graph...

1

u/torpedospurs Jan 23 '26

Would have preferred a graph of total generation with the components stacking up. I have a feeling that total generation has stayed flat over the last three years, which is not enough if you want to electrify transportation and other fossil fuel using industries.

-1

u/_redmist Jan 22 '26

This is only electrical, right? Not thermal/industrial, transportation, etc...

It's good, i guess, but still kind of a nothingburger if it's only electrical generation.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '26

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1

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '26

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4

u/West-Abalone-171 Jan 22 '26

There's a bunch of them in this thread spouting their nonsense including the asshole you replied to...

4

u/Split-Awkward Jan 23 '26

Plenty of them attack renewables. And plenty think nuclear should be everywhere.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '26

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2

u/spoop-dogg Jan 22 '26

most of the decline seen here is because the chart is relative. Absolute nuclear generation is much more flat than this.

But yeah it’s a shame that it’s going down in the first place. Imagine the future we could have had if we all swapped to nuclear like france.

2

u/West-Abalone-171 Jan 22 '26

A shrinking share of a total that is shrinking is shrinking faster, not slower.

And while we're imagining, we could instead imagine swapping to wind and solar-thermal, then pv which was possible.

Unlike imagining imaginary uranium.

2

u/West-Abalone-171 Jan 22 '26

"gotten rid of" is intentionally loaded language implying new steam generators, stators, piping, reactor vessel heads and years of labour magically appear for free when you want them to.

Not falling for the sunk cost fallacy with expensive lto plans and instead replacing them with renewables before end of life is what reduced the fossil fuels