Coal use in electricity generation plunges by one third
The Netherlands produced a record 121 billion kilowatt hours of electricity last year, a rise of 6% on 2018, the national statistics agency CBS said on Tuesday.
But the figures also show a major shift in the amount of energy produced by different sources, with coal plunging by more than a third, from 27 billion kWh to 17 billion kWh, the CBS said.
By contrast, the amount of electricity generated using gas rose over 20% to 71 billion kWh. This, CBS researchers said, is due to low gas prices and the high cost of carbon dioxide emission rights.
The amount of electricity produced by renewable sources and biomass rose to 22 billion kWh, outstripping coal for the first time.
Because domestic production rose, the Netherlands imported less electricity from Germany and exported more, the CBS said.
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