European Countries Cut Tens of Billions of Euros of Fossil Fuel Imports from Wind & Solar Power Growth
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I wrote a handful of articles last month on the 75th edition of the Statistical Review of World Energy. There was one more thing in there that I wanted to cover, though. There’s a chart eleven pages in that shows how much money different countries have saved from switching to wind and solar power faster following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Well, you can see in the chart below how the report words it:
“Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the start of 2022, the European Union accelerated existing plans to scale up its renewable energy capacity. Since then, development has been rapid: wind and solar power made up 30% of electricity supply in 2025, compared to 19% in 2021. This has displaced both coal and gas power, with gas generation falling by 15% in the same period, and coal by 38%. The accelerated deployment of wind and solar, plus supportive policy environments such as REPowerEU, meant that by 2025 the two sources generated 852TWh, more power than coal, gas and oil combined (760TWh),” the report adds.
That’s a dramatic drop in coal and gas power, and rise in wind and solar. (More is needed in reality, as the EU is still too dependent on hostile foreign nations, Russia and the US most notably, but that doesn’t mean that this hasn’t been a significant, quick shift in power supply.)
“The rapid build-out has shielded the region from paying additional costs for imported fossil fuels. Ember analysis has found that new wind and solar capacity deployed following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine avoided €72bn of fossil fuel imports between 2022 and 2025, with the largest savings coming from Germany, Spain and Italy. The majority of this saving has come through avoided gas imports.”
Kudos to the European Union. Now keep up the good work and install more wind and solar power!
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Facts Only
* The European Union accelerated renewable energy capacity plans following Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
* Wind and solar power provided 30% of electricity supply in 2025.
* Wind and solar power provided 19% of electricity supply in 2021.
* Gas generation fell by 15% between 2021 and 2025.
* Coal generation fell by 38% between 2021 and 2025.
* Wind and solar generated 852TWh by 2025.
* Combined coal, gas, and oil generated 760TWh by 2025.
* New wind and solar capacity avoided €72bn of fossil fuel imports between 2022 and 2025.
* Germany, Spain, and Italy saw the largest savings.
* The majority of savings resulted from avoided gas imports.
* REPowerEU is a supportive policy environment for these deployments.
Executive Summary
The European Union has significantly shifted its energy mix between 2021 and 2025, driven largely by the geopolitical instability following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. By accelerating the deployment of wind and solar power through frameworks like REPowerEU, the region increased the share of renewables in its electricity supply from 19% to 30%. This transition resulted in a substantial decline in reliance on coal and gas, with renewables eventually surpassing the combined output of all fossil fuel sources.
Financial analysis indicates that these infrastructure investments shielded the region from higher import costs, avoiding approximately €72bn in fossil fuel expenditures, primarily in the form of reduced natural gas imports. Germany, Italy, and Spain emerged as the primary beneficiaries of these savings. While this shift represents a rapid reduction in dependency on certain foreign energy providers, a degree of reliance on external nations remains.
Full Take
The strongest version of this narrative is that geopolitical crisis can act as a catalyst for rapid infrastructure modernization, transforming an environmental goal into a national security imperative. By tying decarbonization to economic shielding and sovereignty, the EU successfully aligned climate policy with immediate fiscal survival.
The narrative relies heavily on "avoided costs," a common but complex economic metric. While the €72bn figure is precise, it functions as a primary persuasive lever by framing the transition not as a cost, but as a saving. However, this framing omits the initial capital expenditure required to build the capacity that generated those savings. The reliance on a single source of analysis (Ember) to validate the financial victory creates a streamlined success story that leaves little room for discussing the volatility of renewable integration or the costs of grid stabilization.
Patterns detected: none
The driving paradigm is "energy security as sovereignty." It assumes that the fastest path to independence is a rapid shift to domestic renewables. This echoes historical patterns of wartime mobilization where systemic changes that would normally take decades are compressed into years due to an existential threat.
The primary benefit is a reduction in vulnerability to geopolitical blackmail. The second-order consequence is a permanent shift in the European industrial base. However, agency is concentrated in policy-making bodies; the individual consumer's role is presented as a passive beneficiary of these macro-shifts.
To probe deeper, one might ask: What were the total upfront investment costs compared to the €72bn in avoided imports? How has the shift affected baseline grid stability during non-peak renewable generation? To what extent does the supply chain for these renewables introduce new dependencies on different foreign powers?
A coordinated influence campaign would use these figures to claim a "total victory" over fossil fuels while ignoring the remaining energy gap and the costs of the transition to lure investors into a bubble. The actual content does not match this; it acknowledges continued dependency and presents the shift as a significant step rather than a completed mission.