European consumers will save around 100 billion euros on their electricity bills thanks to new renewable energy installations in the period 2021-2023, without which wholesale prices would have been 8 % higher, an area in which Spain is an example.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), in the last 18 months, European countries have made more regulatory changes in favour of renewables than in the previous 10 years.
The accelerated deployment of renewables, with lower production costs, will allow 230 terawatt hours of fossil-fuel generated electricity to be dispensed with, resulting in savings.
The renewables boom
Between 2021 and 2022, the commissioning of 90 gigawatts of solar photovoltaic and wind power equipment will displace 10 % of electricity generation. A further 60 gigawatts will be added by 2023, bringing the share of fossil fuels that are not needed to 20 %.
The agency cites two countries as examples, the first being Spain, where new renewable installations save 60 % of the 6.3 billion euro budget allocated to reduce wholesale electricity prices.
In Germany, these savings pay for the German government’s recent proposal to contain electricity prices until 2030.
It is estimated that the new capacity to be installed between 2023 and 2024 will be 38% higher than anticipated in December 2021, a few weeks before the Ukrainian war broke out.
Photovoltaics for the European Union
The bulk of this upward revision (74%) is due to solar PV and, by a large majority (82 %), from six key markets: Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, France, Italy and Sweden.
Taking into account that new renewable capacities in the period 2021-2023 for the EU as a whole represent an investment of around 200 billion euros, half of this money will already have paid for itself by the end of this year, in the form of reduced bills for consumers.
Source: El periódico de la energía
