EUROPE’S wind farms could produce more electricity than the region’s coal-fired power plants for the first time in 2025 if the recent pace of output growth in wind production and output cuts in coal generation extends through the year.
Total electricity generated by Europe’s wind farms was just 4% less than by the continent’s coal plants in 2024, at 616 terawatt hours (TWh) versus 641TWh, according to data from energy think tank Ember.
Compared with the year before, coal generation was 7% lower in 2024 while wind generation was 3% higher, and if those output changes are repeated in 2025 then Europe’s wind electricity production will surpass coal production by around 6% in 2025.
Greater full-year generation by wind farms over coal plants would mark the first time a single source of renewable energy surpassed coal-fired electricity output in any major region, and would be a key energy transition milestone.
The 25TWh shortfall in wind generation compared with coal-fired generation in 2024 is around half of the amount of electricity produced by Europe’s wind farms each month, according to Ember.
As a result, that output gap could easily be made up over the course of 2025 by an increase in regional wind generation capacity or by higher average wind speeds at turbine level, or by some combination of both.
According to industry group Wind Europe, regional power firms added 15 gigawatts (GW) of wind generation capacity in 2024, bringing the region’s total wind capacity to around 287GW.
That rise in generation footprint should allow the region’s wind farms to lift regional electricity production to a record in 2025, potentially to around 652TWh if the 6% growth in capacity yields an equal-sized rise in electricity output.
That potential 652TWh of wind electricity output should be enough to surpass regional coal generation in 2025, even if coal-fired output holds flat this year from 2024’s levels.
But if coal-fired output in 2025 declines by the same degree as it did in 2024 – by 7% – then wind generation could surpass coal-fired generation by close to 10%, and mark a major turning point in regional energy transition efforts.
However, there are several risks facing Europe’s power sector this year that could still result in regional coal power remaining above regional wind output.
The main potential disruptive factor is the supply of natural gas, which looks set to contract again in 2025 after pipeline flows from Russia to certain European markets dropped from last year’s levels.
Natural gas is the region’s main power source, so reduced gas supplies this year could force Europe’s utilities to boost coal use in order to offset lower system generation from gas. — Reuters
Gavin Maguire is a market analyst for Reuters. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.
