Nuclear to play second fiddle to renewables in western Europe

Share

In a week which saw UK solar installers announce their intention to sue the coalition government over the drastic reductions applied to solar FiT payments, new research claims nuclear is being phased out across the top 10 western European power markets – including the UK – in favor of renewables.

A report from ‘business intelligence providers' GBI Research predicts that the UK, along with the likes of Germany, Spain and Sweden, will see a reduction in nuclear installed generating capacity whilst renewables capacity will rise.

GBI Research says renewables capacity across the ten countries will rise from 308.5 GW in 2012 to 466.9 GW in 2020.

During that period the report's authors forecast a rise in nuclear capacity of only 1.6 GW, from 104 GW to 105.6 GW, with Finland and France accounting for most of that increase.

The report states that across the countries surveyed – which also include Italy, Norway, Denmark and Ireland – the share of the total power market taken by renewables will rise from 38.8% to 49.8% over the eight years in question whilst nuclear's share will fall from 14.2% last year to 11.3% in 2020.

GBI Research also predicts demand across the 10 countries in question will force up generation capacity from 758.1 GW in 2012 to 937.3 GW in seven years' time.

This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.

Popular content

Mercedes-Benz testing new solar paint

02 December 2024 Mercedes-Benz said it is now evaluating a 20%-efficient, non-silicon photovoltaic coating that is significantly cheaper than conventional solar module...

Share

Leave a Reply

Please be mindful of our community standards.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.

Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.

You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.

Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.