Page 16 - European Energy Innovation - autumn 2018 publication

16 Autumn 2018 European Energy Innovation

ROOFTOP PV

Rooftop PV and self consumption
of electricity in Europe
Benefits for the climate and
local economies

By Arnulf Jäger-Waldau (below), European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Directorate C:
Energy, Transport and Climate, Energy Efficiency and Renewables Unit Via E. Fermi 2749, TP 450,
I-21027 Ispra (VA), Italy

The necessity to limit the World-wide, the power sector was the progress to increase renewable
maximum global average responsible for 38% of the fossil power generation, the total emissions
temperature rise as fuel related and 31% of the total related to the generation of electricity
close as possible to 1.5˚C CO2 emissions, even as electricity have increased by 45% compared to
was acknowledged with the Paris accounted only for 18.5% of the final a 40% total increase of CO2 emissions
Agreement, which went into force energy consumption in 2015. Despite between 2000 and 2015[3].
on 4th November 2016. However,
the current policies in place to Figure 1: Potential PV capacity per NUTS2 region[11] To
limit global greenhouse gas (GHG)
emission are still not sufficient to
keep the temperature rise below
2˚C[1]. The burning of fossil fuels for
energy purposes is still the largest
source of the world’s greenhouse
gas emissions with 68%, making
the decarbonisation of our energy
supply the single most important
component to achieve the targets[2, 3].

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