Is the EU's electricity ‘diverse’ enough? Renewables slip year-on-year despite huge solar boom
euronews
Why EU renewables slipped below last year’s level despite solar surge
More than half of electricity generated in the EU came from renewable energy sources during the second quarter of 2026, new data shows.
TLDR, the drop in renewable energy generation is caused by the drought, because less water means less hydropower, but drought usually means more light, which could be compensated by additional solar panels.
Well, you could start to generate Hydrogen and replace natural gas, you could run desalination plants and waste treatment with all this “free” energy, just to not waste anything. This would reduce the impact of droughts because you could just use the energy you stored, or don’t need to use energy because you already used it earlier.
As it stands, on sunny days I see 3/5 windmills standing still because the price on the energy bazaar is less than zero, so the utility companies would have to pay. Make it possible for people, facilities and companies to leverage that instead!
Run flywheels, charge batteries, generate hydrogen, desalinate and clean water and pump it up some hills, the possibilities are endless. They’re just not doing it because reasons.
At least in Germany we are quite busy installing energy storage. Not sure about the rest of EU, but I would assume it looks similar.
Sadly, mostly batteries. I’d like to see more flywheels and hot sand and hydrogen, please.
We had the worst hydro year in recent history and the share of renewables stayed the same. Basically, PV compensated for a bad hydro year. That is already good news, if we get a good renewable year, fossile fuel will crash to levels of insignificanz.