EY: Europe will reach parity in the use of traditional and renewable energy by 2025, 20 years ahead of US

According to research by EY, the amounts of traditional and renewable energy used in Europe will be similar by 2025, which will be two decades earlier than in the United States.

Electric vehicles will become a basic transport option by 2025 in all markets according to EY, and annual revenue of USD 67 billion will be threatened by the distribution of solar energy in Europe by 2050. In Romania, a clarification of the system of integrating “personal” production capacities is expected.

The EY study predicts that by 2022 in Europe and 2021 in Oceania, the costs for the generation and autonomous storage of energy will be similar to the costs of acquiring energy from a supplier. Results show that American markets will reach off-grid parity in a longer period of time, for example in 2042 in the south-east, where the energy sector is complex and highly regionalised.

The research analyses the expected adoption rate and its impact on demand and energy costs for 10 important energy producers and distributors in Europe, Oceania and the US. For the first time, the debut of three critical moments for the energy sector were calculated: when the auto-generation of energy becomes accessible for everyone; when electric vehicles become a mainstream mobility option; when the supply of energy through grids becomes more expensive for consumers than the energy they could produce for themselves.

Valeriu Binig, EY Romania partner: “The coming of age of renewable energy production technologies, the abrupt drop in the costs of storing energy in batteries and clearer choices for the final consumer has been indicating for a long time the emergence of a radically new energetic system. While tendencies and moments differ between markets and geographies, the study clearly shows that the countdown to a new energy future is much more accelerated than many were expecting”.

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The study shows two factors which could accelerate the achievement of key transformation points: the change in consumers’ preferences in favour of renewable energy and the accelerated adoption of technologies which allow easy integration in distribution networks and reduce the generation costs of solar and wind energy, as well as the costs of storing energy in batteries.

Many European countries have already begun to change their energy business models as a response to the legislative and regulatory pressures, going towards increasing the absorption of renewable resources and ambitious targets of reducing carbon footprint.

Valeriu Binig: “In Romania we expect a clarification of the system for integrating production capacities from renewable sources of the possible ‘prosumers’. (…) We are seeing efforts from Romanian utilities companies to become agile and implement smart solutions, to offer clients a wide range of services besides electricity, sometimes gas too. We need more patience until this transformation effort will bring clear profits, but it’s the only option in the European and worldwide context”.