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Solar: Main source of EU electricity in June with 22%

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In the second quarter of 2025, 54.0% of net electricity generated in the EU came from renewable energy sources, an increase from the 52.7% registered in the same quarter of 2024. This increase was mostly due to solar energy, which generated a total of 122 317 gigawatt-hours (GWh) in the second quarter of 2025, representing 19.9% of the total electricity generation mix. 

June 2025 was the first month in history where solar energy (22.0%) was the main source of electricity generated in the EU, ahead of nuclear (21.6%), wind (15.8%), hydro (14.1%) and natural gas (13.8%). 

Among EU countries, in the second quarter of 2025, Denmark, with 94.7%, had the highest share of renewables in net electricity generated, followed by Latvia (93.4%), Austria (91.8%), Croatia (89.5%) and Portugal (85.6%). The lowest shares of renewables were recorded in Slovakia (19.9%), Malta (21.2%) and Czechia (22.1%). 

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Source dataset: nrg_cb_pem

In 15 EU countries, the share of renewable energy sources in net electricity generation increased in the second quarter of 2025. The largest year-on-year increases were recorded in Luxembourg (+13.5 percentage points (pp)) and Belgium (+9.1 pp), both of them due to the increase in solar energy. 

Most of the electricity generated from renewable sources came from solar (36.8%), wind (29.5%) and hydro (26.0%), followed by combustible renewable fuels (7.3%) and geothermal energy (0.4%).

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Click to enlarge

Source dataset: nrg_cb_pem

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Methodological notes

  • The share of renewables in net electricity production should not be mistaken for the share of renewables in gross electricity consumption, which is the main indicator used to monitor the Renewable Energy Directive (RED). The methodologies used to calculate each of them differ. The former (used in this article) is only based on electricity generation, while the latter follows the methodology of the RED and divides electricity generation by electricity consumption, which can lead to shares higher than 100%. In addition, the share according to the RED requires that hydro and wind power are averaged over several years to smooth out the effects of meteorological variation (‘normalised’), and considers electricity from renewable combustible fuels (solid, liquid and gaseous biofuels) as renewable only when these biofuels comply with the sustainability criteria. More details on these differences can be found in the Energy balance guide and in the SHARES Manual.
  • Hydro power excludes pure pumping in the numerator and the denominator, which is a methodological change compared to the news item on this topic published on 19 March 2025.
  • Solar includes solar photovoltaics and solar thermal electricity generation.
  • Data presented in this news item is collected at monthly frequency. For this news item, monthly data is aggregated into quarters (e.g. Q2). However, the data indicated for the month of June is monthly data, referring only to June.

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