Covid Vs Coal: Has The Pandemic Accelerated Europe’s Green Energy Transition?

Covid Vs Coal: Has The Pandemic Accelerated Europe’s Green Energy Transition?

Share to Linkedin A bucket excavator mines lignite coal near Elsdorf, Germany. Because maintaining electricity output ... [+] from coal-fired power plants during prolonged periods of reduced demand is costlier than from renewables, energy companies prioritized reducing their electricity production from coal-fired plants first. As the coronavirus pandemic continues to hammer communities around the world, energy researchers in Europe have been looking at another development caused by the outbreak: a drop in carbon emissions and an acceleration of the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable electricity. The findings were released today by Finnish energy firm Wärtsilä, along with a scorecard that ranks countries according to CO2 reductions. The list shows Austria cut emissions the most in percentage terms, reducing national CO2 output by 29%, helped by the closure of the country's last coal-fired power plant in April 2020. But in terms of sheer tons of carbon reduced, Spain and the Netherlands made the biggest cuts, each lowering emissions by 10. 2 million tons of CO2 over the course of a year. Spain achieved this by closing no less than seven coal-fired power plants, while the Netherlands imported a larger proportion of low and zero carbon electricity from neighbors such