More Renewables Lead To Lower Demand For Methane In Europe

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There’s a line in a Bruce Springsteen song that goes like this: “Foreman says these jobs are going, and they ain’t comin’ back.” Something similar is happening to demand for methane in Europe. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the Continent depended heavily on supplies of cheap methane from Russia. With those supplies interrupted, alternatives needed to be found. Those alternatives turned out to be wind and solar, which since 2022 have increased rapidly all across Europe to the point where they now supply more electricity to Europe than it gets from methane-fired generating stations.

Reuters reports that concerns about Europe not having enough methane — either in gaseous form or as LNG — are now being replaced by a new understanding that methane is the past and renewables are the future. That could mark a structural shift in the market for methane in Europe, where solar and wind output has climbed to between 80 and 110 ⁠terawatt-hours a month, while gas-fired generation has steadily lost ground.

Throughout much of 2025 and 2026, renewable generation in Europe has matched or exceeded gas output for extended periods, but this is not simply the ​result of favorable weather, Reuters notes. Europe’s methane-fired generating capacity has grown from 250 gigawatts to around 400 GW over the past quarter century. By contrast, wind and solar capacity has surged from under 20 GW ​to nearly 750 GW over the same period. Europe now has nearly twice as much installed wind and solar capacity as it has methane-fired capacity.

Why It Matters

Temporary shifts in generation can be explained by weather. Structural shifts are driven by changes in the footprint of the generation fleet itself. “Now, everyone wants a seat at the table,” Reuters says. “Once sufficient renewable capacity is installed, declining fossil generation becomes less a policy aspiration and more of ​a mathematical consequence. The data suggests Europe may have already crossed that threshold.”

Historically, methane served as the workhorse of Europe’s ​power system, with demand easing in spring and summer before rising sharply in winter. Now wind and solar are increasingly dominating the April through October period. European utilities have been able to reduce coal and methane-fired generation to multi-year lows in 2026 as combined solar and wind output climbed to record highs. The traditional methane burning season is becoming progressively shorter as renewables supply a growing share of electricity demand.

The most important implication may be for gas inventories, Reuters says. Since 2022, Europe has treated storage as a critical insurance policy against supply disruptions and winter demand surges. But if power sector methane demand keeps shrinking, Europe may not need to store as much of it each summer or withdraw as much during ​the winter. This changes the debate from “Does Europe have enough gas?” to “How much gas does Europe actually need?”

A Bridge Fuel No Longer

Advocates for burning methane like to point out that it burns cleaner than coal. That much is true. But methane has its own emissions problems. Not only does it still create carbon dioxide when burned, it also adds fine particulate matter to the atmosphere. Fine particulates are linked to a number of negative health consequences and are particularly harmful to young people whose lungs, hearts, and brains are still developing. Why put our children at risk when there are safer and cheaper alternatives available?

For ⁠years, policymakers described gas as a bridge fuel between coal and renewables. Reuters says Europe has crossed that bridge and is moving quickly into the renewable energy future. For a continent that spent years worrying about whether it could secure enough methane to ​get through winter, needing less gas in the first place may prove the most consequential energy development of all, it suggests.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference last February, the EU Commissioner for Climate, Dan Jørgensen, delivered this unambiguous message: “Without energy security, there can be no broader security.” And that, gentle reader, is the point.

“We need to address both dimensions of energy security — reducing dangerous dependencies by accelerating homegrown renewables and diversification, while at the same time strengthening the protection and resilience of our critical infrastructure against physical, cyber, and climate threats. Only by combining resilience and independence can we ensure a truly secure energy future for Europe,” Jørgensen said.

In a blog post last month, the Climate Action Network said: “fossil fuels are driving increasingly deadly heat waves, and the EU’s dependence on them is undermining affordability and energy security, as geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East have recently made clear. The only lasting way to protect European citizens from both climate impacts and spiking energy prices is to end the EU’s dependence on fossil fuels.

“The good news is that Europe has already demonstrated that it can reduce fossil gas. The challenge now is to ensure that this progress becomes the foundation of a permanent transition rather than a temporary response to the crisis. That means moving beyond emergency measures and adopting a genuine Fossil Gas Exit strategy.”

Slaves To A New Master

The EU still imports almost 90 percent of the gas it consumes, and the underlying dependency has not disappeared — it has merely shifted. A reduction in Russian methane supplies has been offset by an increasing reliance on LNG, particularly from the United States, which in 2025 accounted for 58 percent of total LNG imports in Europe.

“This is neither a secure nor a sustainable solution,” CAN said. The EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators has warned that increasing reliance on LNG will expose Europe to greater global price volatility.

“Even when cheaper renewable electricity is available, methane continues to set electricity prices in European wholesale markets, leaving consumers exposed to volatile global prices. Reliance on expensive LNG imports only exacerbates this problem. According to Clean Heat Europe, the full deployment of solar, heat pumps, and district heating systems could reduce Europe’s annual demand for imported fossil gas by up to 74.6 billion cubic meters by 2030.”

CAN suggests the EU should develop a roadmap to phase out LNG import dependency, with particular focus on reducing reliance on LNG from the US by 2032. The commitment to end Russian fossil gas imports by 2027 could serve as a blueprint for a strategy that would avoid replacing one fossil gas dependency with another.

Reducing methane emissions is not only a climate imperative; it is also an energy security measure, CAN said. According to the International Energy Agency, eliminating methane leaks and ending non-emergency flaring worldwide could recover around 200 bcm of methane annually — fuel that is currently being wasted. More than 40 civil society organizations have called on the European Commission to use the upcoming revision of the Energy Security Framework to put an end to the EU’s fossil fuel dependence.

“The EU’s long term security will not come from signing new LNG contracts or finding new gas suppliers. It will come from ending the need for gas in the first place. The past four years have shown that demand reduction works. The question now is whether the EU will build on that success with a genuine Fossil Gas Exit Strategy, or remain trapped in a cycle of climate disruption, geopolitical instability, and volatile energy prices,” CAN claimed.

No Going Back

As Bill McKibben has pointed out, once renewables replace fossil fuels, there is no going back. Nobody who has experienced what it is like to get “free fuel” from sunlight or wind ever decides to go back to paying for fuel again. Nobody who harvests energy from the sun or the wind ever wants to be dependent on some global supply chain for their energy security.

When the Moron of Mar-A-Loco starts beating his gums about “energy dominance,” you have to ask yourself why you would ever want to be at the mercy of someone who wants to use access to fuel as a club to force you to do his bidding? The logical path forward for any nation is to have complete control over its own energy supply to avoid being dependent on others for such a vital resource.

Recent history shows those others can change their minds in a heartbeat. Since the current US administration came to power, the world has learned that nothing — not a treaty, a contract, or a verbal promise — can be relied on.

No one controls sunlight or wind. Together, they are not only the cheapest source of energy available in virtually all cases, they also are free of outside interference. Europe holds the key that can unlock abundant, locally produced clean energy. Now all it has to do is use it.