• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
BREAKING: Federal Budget Pours Tens of Billions Into Clean Economy March 28, 2023
Somali Canadians Aid Drought-Stricken Homeland as 43,000 Reported Dead March 26, 2023
B.C.’s New Energy Framework a ‘Smokescreen,’ Critic Warns March 26, 2023
SPECIAL REPORT: ‘Defuse the Climate Time Bomb’ with Net-Zero by 2040, Guterres Urges G20 March 20, 2023
Devastating Impacts, Affordable Climate Solutions Drive IPCC’s Urgent Call for Action March 20, 2023
Next
Prev

Europe fails to keep up on solar power

February 6, 2020
Reading time: 3 minutes
Primary Author: Paul Brown

 

Europe needs new factories to harness solar power, with a huge effort to install the panels they’ll make, for the world to avoid catastrophic warming.

LONDON, 6 February, 2020 − Europe is falling well behind in the race to install enough solar power to keep the rise in global temperatures below dangerous levels, and to reach its own renewable energy targets. But it’s  not impossible.

  • Be among the first to read The Energy Mix Weekender
  • A brand new weekly digest containing exclusive and essential climate stories from around the world.
  • The Weekender:The climate news you need.
Subscribe

Once a world leader in the technology and manufacture of solar panels, Europe now lags far behind China and other Asian countries. It faces shortages of supplies and disruption to them, according to the annual PV status report of the European Commission’s Science Hub.

The report says the installation rate of panels has to increase “drastically” − more than five times by 2025, and double that again if Europe is to convert to electric cars and fuels like hydrogen.

It says current policies in place to limit global greenhouse gas emissions are insufficient to keep the temperature increase below 2°C above historic levels, considered by governments to be the maximum acceptable to avoid dangerous climate change.

To keep below that level the decarbonisation of the energy system is the single most important element, but it is moving far too slowly.

“There are huge opportunities for PV in the future, but such developments will not happen on their own”

In order to reach the world’s climate targets the power sector has to be fully decarbonised – not by 2060, but well before 2050 – and photo-voltaic solar energy (PV) is one of the key technologies for implementing this shift.

“PV is a key technology option for decarbonising the power sector. It can be deployed in a modular way almost anywhere, solar resources in the world are abundant and they cannot be monopolised by one country”, said JRC director Piotr Szymanski.

The report’s author, Arnulf Jäger-Waldau, added: “Although (last year) the new installed capacity increased worldwide by 7% and solar power attracted the largest share of new investments in renewable energies for the ninth year in a row, a much more rapid increase in the installation rate is needed to decarbonise the power sector by 2050”.

Current capacity equips the EU to provide just under 5% of its electricity demand from solar PV. There was an installed capacity of 117 GW at the end of 2018, and in 2019 the EU lost further ground in the worldwide market.

Marked drop

Its share of global installed capacity was about 23%. This is a steep decline from the 66 % recorded at the end of 2012.

The report looks at the state of solar PV in individual countries across Europe and in large players across the world and shows how governments are failing to support the industry while they continue to subsidise fossil fuels on a large scale.

The report says that instead of lagging further behind, the EU needs to increase its solar capacity by five times to over 630GW by 2025, and then by five times again by 2050 if it is to cover all its electricity needs with renewables – and that is including the very large share of the market taken by wind and other technologies like hydro-power.

One of the problems for the EU is that it has lost all but a few of its panel manufacturers and needs to re-open solar panel factories or face a shortage of supply.

Until 2006 solar cell production was dominated by Japan and Europe, but in 2014 a new trend emerged which saw China and Taiwan rapidly increase their production capacities. Since then, other Asian countries such as India, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam have followed their lead.

Costs head downwards

The rapid cost reduction in PV manufacturing would merit a fresh look at the potential to bring PV factories back to Europe. The investment costs required by PV manufacturing have decreased by about 90% over the past 10 years, and the European manufacturing chain could be competitive with factories with an annual production volume from 5 to 10 GW.

“There are huge opportunities for PV in the future, but such developments will not happen on their own. It will require a sustained effort and support of all stakeholders to implement the change to a sustainable energy supply, with PV delivering a major part”, Dr Jäger-Waldau concluded.

The massive drop in the cost of producing electricity from solar power – about 80% in the last decade – makes it competitive with fossil fuels across the world. Regardless of how fast energy prices increase in the future, and of the reasons behind these increases, PV and other renewable energies are the only ones offering stable prices in future, or even a reduction.

The report says the main barriers to the changes needed include regulatory frameworks and the limitations of the existing electricity transmission and distribution systems. − Climate News Network



in Climate News Network

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

moerschy / Pixabay
Biodiversity & Habitat

Planetary Weight Study Shows Humans Taking Most of Earth’s Resources

March 19, 2023
35
U.S. Geological Survey/wikimedia commons
Biodiversity & Habitat

Climate Change Amplifies Risk of ‘Insect Apocalypse’

December 1, 2022
50
Alaa Abd El-Fatah/wikimedia commons
COP Conferences

Rights Abuses, Intrusive Conference App Put Egypt Under Spotlight as COP 27 Host

November 14, 2022
27

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

kelly8843496 / Pixabay

BREAKING: Federal Budget Pours Tens of Billions Into Clean Economy

March 29, 2023
678
Faye Cornish/Unsplash

Abundance, Not Austerity: Reframe the Climate Narrative, Solnit Urges

March 26, 2023
166
U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement/flickr

Willow Oil Project in Alaska Faces Legal Challenges, Economic Doubts

March 19, 2023
769
TruckPR/flickr

Opinion: Hydrogen Hype Sabotages Potential to Decarbonize

March 28, 2023
385
moerschy / Pixabay

Fringe Conspiracy Theories Target 15-Minute City Push in Edmonton, Toronto

February 22, 2023
1.8k
Bruce Reeve/Flickr

Ontario Faces Multi-Million Dollar Lawsuits Over Cancelled Carbon Pricing Program

May 14, 2022
203

Recent Posts

icondigital/pixabay

New Federal Procurement Rule Requires Biggest Bidders to Report Net-Zero Plans

March 28, 2023
188
UNICEF Ethiopia/flickr

Somali Canadians Aid Drought-Stricken Homeland as 43,000 Reported Dead

March 29, 2023
41
Σ64/Wikimedia Commons

B.C.’s New Energy Framework a ‘Smokescreen,’ Critic Warns

March 28, 2023
63
Prime Minister's Office/flickr

Biden’s Ottawa Visit Highlights EVs, Clean Grid, Critical Minerals

March 28, 2023
89
EUMETSAT/wikimedia commons

Cyclone Freddy Leaves Over 500 Dead on Africa’s Southeast Coast

March 23, 2023
63
Kern River Valley Fire Info/Facebook

SPECIAL REPORT: ‘Defuse the Climate Time Bomb’ with Net-Zero by 2040, Guterres Urges G20

March 20, 2023
342
Next Post

Cyprus Plans €290-Million LNG Terminal

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}