Clean energy is shielding EU from the worst of the Middle East crisis

This briefing by Zero Carbon Analytics examines how the European Union's increased investment in wind and solar energy between 2022 and 2025 has reduced its vulnerability to global energy shocks, specifically comparing the impact of the 2022 Russia-Ukraine crisis with a subsequent crisis caused by a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz in 2026.

• Between 2022 and 2025, the EU significantly expanded its renewable energy capacity to reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels. Solar PV capacity reached 406 GW by the end of 2025, more than doubling its pre-war levels, while wind capacity grew by approximately 31% to 246 GW. Consequently, wind and solar provided 30.3% of the EU's electricity in 2025, compared to 19.1% in 2021.
• The growth in renewable energy output between 2022 and 2025 saved the EU an estimated EUR 58 billion in coal and gas import costs for power generation. This saving exceeds the total amount the EU spent on industrial energy subsidies in 2022. ZCA analysis suggests that if the bloc had no wind or solar capacity, the additional fossil fuel import bill from 2022 to 2025 would have been EUR 215 billion, which is more than half of the combined 2025 defence spending of EU member states (EUR 381 billion).
• Renewable energy investments have helped decouple electricity prices from gas prices in certain EU markets, particularly in Spain. In the first half of 2019, Spanish power prices reflected fossil generation costs 75% of the time, but this fell to 19% by the first half of 2025. This transition resulted in Spanish households having an average pre-tax electricity price of EUR 0.18/kWh in the first half of 2025, which was 13.1% lower than the EU average.
• Despite overall progress, vulnerability remains uneven across the EU. Italy and Malta are the only two EU countries where over 50% of electricity generation is derived from imported fossil fuels. During the first 16 days of March 2026, following the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, Italy recorded the highest average hourly spot prices for electricity in the EU at EUR 142.08 / MWh, while countries with low fossil fuel shares like Finland (EUR 35.72), Sweden (EUR 54.20), Portugal (EUR 57.28), and Spain (EUR 58.79) had the lowest.

APA

Hedley, N. (2026). Clean energy is shielding EU from the worst of the Middle East crisis. Zero Carbon Analytics. https://zerocarbon-analytics.org/insights/briefings/clean-energy-is-shielding-eu-from-the-worst-of-the-middle-east-crisis/

Chicago

Hedley, Nick. Clean energy is shielding EU from the worst of the Middle East crisis. Zero Carbon Analytics, 2026. https://zerocarbon-analytics.org/insights/briefings/clean-energy-is-shielding-eu-from-the-worst-of-the-middle-east-crisis/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Hedley |first1=Nick |title=Clean energy is shielding EU from the worst of the Middle East crisis |publisher=Zero Carbon Analytics |date=18 March 2026 |url=https://zerocarbon-analytics.org/insights/briefings/clean-energy-is-shielding-eu-from-the-worst-of-the-middle-east-crisis/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{hedley2026clean, author = {Hedley, Nick}, title = {{Clean energy is shielding EU from the worst of the Middle East crisis}}, institution = {Zero Carbon Analytics}, year = {2026}, month = mar, url = {https://zerocarbon-analytics.org/insights/briefings/clean-energy-is-shielding-eu-from-the-worst-of-the-middle-east-crisis/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }