A report published on 30 September by the Joint Research Centre (JRC), the European Commission’s internal scientific service, reveals that converting only 1% of land to solar farms would be enough to meet the European Union’s electricity needs.
Carried out using a new EU-28 dataset on the potential of wind, solar, and biomass energy, this study shows that none of the Member States are currently exploiting their full potential in terms of renewable energy production.
However, according to JRC researcher Pablo Ruiz, the data analysed also indicate “that there are many regions in Eastern Europe—for instance Lithuania, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Poland—that have large areas of released or abandoned arable land, which could be used for fast-growing energy crops”.
The JRC report also reveals that the EU’s total demand, not just for electricity but for energy, could be met exclusively with renewable sources by using 3% of land for solar farms and up to 15% of land for wind energy.
For more information, please visit: https://bit.ly/2ntdxG0 (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)