A data exploration report on the European Power sector from 2000 to 2020.

The European Power Sector (2000-2020)

Find the dataset that I used here:

2020 marked a momentous year for supporters of renewable energy. The data provided shows a demonstrable tailwind for Renewables and a recent trepidation for Coal and other Fossil fuels. These factors coalesced to show Renewables overtaking Fossil Fuels in production share for the first time in the history of the European Union.

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This paradigm shift is quite noticeable when looking deeper into the individual sources of production in the EU. The figure below offers a glimpse into the strides that the EU has made in the last 20 years away from Fossil Fuels towards Renewables.

Sources like Coal and Hard Coal have more than halved in production share while renewable sources like Wind, Solar and Bioenergy have increased exponentially. This trend towards renewables has a peculiar contradiction, however; Gas increased its average production share by over 150% while Hydro declined. Interestingly, though, Nuclear has remained the highest average production source, only decreasing slightly.

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Over the past decade, the EU has really began to diversify their production shares of Renewable energy. The figure below shows that Hydro was the sole source for renewable energy until about 2011. Sources like Bioenergy and Solar grew from insignificant in 2000 to reasonable production share by 2015. The real hero was Wind, though. Growing from a mere 0.81% average share of production in 2000, Wind became the leading source of Renewable energy with an average production share of 14.37% in 2020.