For decades, fossil fuels dominated Europe's power grids. Coal, gas, and oil provided the reliable backbone of electricity generation across the continent — and the idea that wind turbines and solar panels could replace them seemed, to many people, like wishful thinking.
In 2025, it happened.
Wind and solar together generated 30% of all electricity in the European Union last year — surpassing fossil fuels, which contributed 29%, for the first time in history. According to analysis by Ember Energy, corroborated by Eurostat and confirmed by the Guardian, Our World in Data, and others, it represents a genuine structural shift in how Europe is powered.
The Numbers
- Wind + solar combined: 30% — beating fossil fuels for the first time ever
- All renewables combined: 47.3% — nearly half of all EU electricity
- Solar alone: 13% — a new record, up 20%+ year-on-year for the fourth consecutive year
- Wind: 17% of total EU power — the largest single renewable contributor
- Fossil fuels: 29% — down from 37% just five years ago in 2020
Fourteen of the EU's 27 member states generated more electricity from wind and solar combined than from all fossil sources in 2025. That's not a handful of progressive outliers — it's a majority of the union.
What Makes This Milestone Significant
The shift from 20% to 30% wind and solar in just five years — while fossil fuels fell from 37% to 29% — signals something beyond incremental progress. Energy analysts describe it as a "tipping point": the moment at which clean energy is no longer catching up to fossil fuels but actively replacing them.
Solar's performance was particularly striking. Despite 2025 being a year of challenging weather conditions — including a 12% decline in hydropower due to drought and a 2% dip in wind — solar still grew by over 20% for the fourth consecutive year. The technology keeps getting cheaper, installations keep accelerating, and output keeps rising regardless of what the weather does.
Why It Matters for the Climate
Electricity generation is one of the largest single sources of greenhouse gas emissions globally. As grids get cleaner, everything that runs on electricity — electric vehicles, heat pumps, industrial processes — becomes cleaner too. The decarbonisation of Europe's electricity grid is a multiplier that affects the entire economy.
The EU has a binding target of 42.5% renewable energy across all energy use by 2030. In electricity specifically, the target is considerably more ambitious — and 2025's results suggest it may be reachable ahead of schedule.
The Road Ahead
The challenge now is sustaining momentum while building the storage infrastructure to firm up intermittent wind and solar, and expanding interconnection between countries so surplus power from one region can offset deficits in another.
None of that is simple. But the tipping point is real. In 2025, for the first time, the sun and the wind outran coal, gas, and oil in powering an entire continent's electricity grid.
The direction of travel is no longer in question.
Sources: Ember Energy analysis (January 2026) · The Guardian, January 22, 2026 · Eurostat, March 19, 2026 · Our World in Data · PV Magazine · Renewables Now
