Renewable power generation overtook electricity generated by fossil fuels in the European Union in 2025, a “major tipping point,” according to a new report, with renewable energy providing nearly half of the EU’s energy. This shift in power generation is important not only in terms of curbing carbon emissions, but also provides geopolitical stability by increasing the economic bloc’s energy sovereignty.

In their European Electricity Review 2026, global energy think tank Ember reported that in 2025 wind and solar power stations alone “generated a record 30% of EU electricity, higher than fossil power for the first time on record,” versus just 29 percent of the European Union’s power coming from burning fossil fuels such as coal, gas or oil.

Bioenergy, hydroelectric and other renewable sources provided an additional 18 percent to wind and solar’s share, meaning renewables accounted for 48 percent—nearly half—of all power generated in 2025.

Solar was at the forefront of this power shift, accounting for an unprecedented 13 percent of the EU’ generating capacity; impressively, 20 percent of the electricity—that’s one in every five watts of power—generated in member states Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, the Netherlands and Spain were drawn from solar alone.

“Solar alone grew by more than 20% in a single year, proving that clean power can scale faster than any conventional technology,” according to Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air analyst Petras Katinas. “The challenge now is not generation, but how quickly Europe can deploy grids, batteries, and flexibility.”

The value of renewable energy sources was bolstered by a surge in grid-scale battery capacity, storing surplus electricity generated during the day for use to supply nighttime demand peaks. Italy alone is home to one-fifth of the EU’s existing  storage, and has announced additional projects on-par with infrastructure that is already operating in California, where energy from batteries supply 20 percent of the state’s evening demand.

Although generation from wind turbines dropped slightly from 2024, it still accounted for 17 percent of the power produced, the second-largest source in the EU. Due to a decrease in weather-related shortfalls in hydroelectric power, gas use increased by eight percent, although this still remained below its most recent peak in 2019. Coal-fired plants contributed to just a little over nine percent—a historic low for the most carbon-intensive of power sources, and was less than five percent in 17 of the EU’s 27 member nations.

A major motivation behind this shift to renewables is due to what the European Commission’s Affordable Energy Action Plan described as the EU’s “dependence on costly imported fossil fuels,” a situation brought to the fore by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and underscored by uncertainty over whether or not the United States can remain a stable supplier of natural gas.

“The importance of this goes beyond the power sector,” remarked the report’s lead author, Beatrice Petrovich, an analyst with Ember. “The danger of relying on fossil fuels looms large in destabilised geopolitics.”