RES Scenario in the European Union

The evolution of energy consumption in Europe is going through a profound change in recent years: the incidence of traditional fuels is diminishing gradually in the face of an increase in renewable energy sources (RES). In 2013, the consumption of electricity from RES amounts to 14 % of the total with respect to 6 % in 1997.This chapter provides a quantitative analysis of RES in the EU and the prospect of development of RES under different scenarios. The analysis begins with a description of the technical characteristics of RES and the quantity produced by each source at world level. In Sect. 2.2, the distribution of the three major RES that are wind, solar, and biomass throughout the EU context is analyzed. Section 2.3 provides an analysis of the development of RES in the coming years by different scenarios, both according to the 2014 edition of future scenarios of the International Energy Agency (IEA) in the WEO-2014 and the current EU Climate and Energy Package. Conclusions are drawn in Sect. 2.4.