The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

The flip side of Europe’s extreme heat: More solar energy potential

Annual climate report finds weather patterns behind extreme heat waves are increasing solar energy potential in the EU

Visitors walk by sun shades installed in a municipal park area by the Bosque Metropolitano city forest site at Fuente Carrantona, in the Horcajo district of Madrid. (Emilio Parra Doiztua/Bloomberg)
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Extreme heat and drought threaten lives and livelihoods in Europe, according to an analysis of the continent’s weather and climate of 2022. But another consequence of those trends: record-setting sunshine.

Solar radiation across Europe reached its highest level observed since the satellite era began four decades ago. Scientists said that could drive more renewable energy generation in countries not traditionally considered awash in solar resources.

“The reality is, they are getting sunnier,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. “Their energy potential is increasing.”

The agency’s European State of the Climate report, released Thursday, stressed that the continent is grappling with extreme climate change impacts, warming nearly twice as much as the globe, on average, since preindustrial times. In 2022, health-threatening heat stress was more common in southern Europe, glaciers melted faster than ever observed in the Alps, and Greenland experienced record-breaking ice loss into September.

Record summer heat, which officials said caused thousands of deaths, pushed Europe to its second-warmest year on record, the report found.

“The climate all of us will live in will be different than the climate of our youth,” Carlo Buontempo, Copernicus’ director, said in a briefing with reporters. “Let’s take this report as yet another wake-up call.”

As European leaders work to increase renewable energy generation and reduce dependence on Russian fossil fuels, the report also explored the impact of weather and climate on renewable energy potential.

It found that wind energy generation potential declined for much of the continent in 2022, with no discernible trend or changes in wind speeds over the past three decades.

Sunshine, on the other hand, has been steadily increasing as a result of the same weather patterns driving dangerous heat and drought, the scientists said.

Areas of high pressure parked over Europe, known as anticyclones, persisted last year, leading to an increase in sunny days. Europe saw about 130 more sunshine hours than average in 2022; the continent averaged about 2,335 sunshine hours from 1983 to 2012, according to Copernicus.

“Everyone very much enjoys this in springtime,” Burgess said, adding that the trend “has consequences.”

Some of the largest increases in sunshine hours were observed in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, as well as in southeastern Europe, including Bosnia, Serbia and Bulgaria, the report found.

Besides the weather, Europeans can also credit reduced air pollution for clearing skies, said Vincent-Henri Peuch, deputy director of Copernicus Services at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. Particles of pollution known as aerosols help stimulate cloud production, but Europe’s efforts to reduce such emissions have helped reduce cloud cover, he said.

Copernicus did not report data on actual solar energy production, though other sources show a rapid growth of photovoltaic panel arrays in some countries. A December report by Solar Power Europe said the EU’s fleet of solar generation grew by 25 percent in 2022, with the most growth in Germany, Spain, Poland, the Netherlands and France.

Burgess said Copernicus included the data on solar energy potential in its report because “there’s no shadow of a doubt we need to get to net zero.”

“We’ve got to look for positives in this situation,” she said.

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