Skimpy snow cover worsens Europe's clean power woes

Below-normal snowfall across continental Europe this past winter is depriving regional utilities of a critical source of dispatchable clean power this spring, and comes on top of a sharp drop in wind generation so far in 2025.
Snow-fed hydro production across the Alps region has dropped by more than a third so far this year compared to the same dates a year ago, according to LSEG, following a fall in winter precipitation.
The lower hydro supplies follow a multi-month stretch of weak wind output that forced European utilities to lift generation from fossil fuels by 7% from year-ago levels, data from Ember shows.
Continued weak hydro production means regional utilities may need to further boost output from natural gas and coal-fired power plants, which along with nuclear reactors are Europe's other main sources of power that can be dispatched on command.
Output from snow-fed hydro assets typically peaks during the spring and early summer, when rising temperatures help melt snow packs to replenish reservoirs and boost output from run-of-river turbine systems.
Seasonal snow-fed hydro model data from LSEG suggests that output for the Alps region as a whole already peaked in late March, and will continue to steadily decline until late summer before recovering again during the fall and winter.
What's more, the peak in Alps-area hydro output was nearly 40% less than during the same period in 2024, and around 30% below the long-term average, due to thin snow coverage in key areas this past winter.
Cumulative snow-fed hydro production in Austria was the hardest hit among major regions this year, registering a 44% fall from the same dates in 2024.
However, Switzerland, France, Italy and the overall Danube catchment area are all on track for output declines of 30% or more, LSEG data shows.
In 2024, Europe's hydro dams generated around 18% of the continent's electricity, according to Ember.
That share compared to 23% from gas-fired plants, 20% from nuclear plants, and 13% from both wind farms and coal plants.
Solar farms generated around 7% of electricity, bioenergy plants around 3%, while other renewable and fossil plants generated another 3%.

Europe's utilities are used to volatile output from hydro assets, and have become adept at replacing lost hydro supplies with higher production from other assets.
However, as Europe's wind farms already registered a more than 10% decline in wind electricity output during the first three months of 2025 from the same quarter in 2024, European power firms are facing tight clean energy supplies this year.
Some systems, particularly France's, have abundant nuclear reactor capacity to ensure overall electricity flows remain clean even during spells of low wind and hydro production.
Most other European networks, however, have had to boost fossil fuel-fired generation to replace the lost wind and hydro supplies.
Across Europe as a whole, gas-fired electricity production was up 26% over the first three months of 2025 from the same months in 2024, while coal-fired generation was 15% higher.
In Austria, where hydro power accounts for more than 60% of electricity supplies, gas output jumped by 75% during January to March from the same months in 2024 as utilities tried to balance system needs during the recent hydro slump.
Fossil fuel-fired generation has also climbed in Germany, France and Italy so far this year from a year ago, in part to offset the reduced hydro power supplies.
Output from Europe's solar farms is on track to smash previous records in 2025, and will be able to at least partially offset reduced supplies from other assets.
However, because solar power supplies can only be dispatched when the sun is shining, solar farms will not be able to fully replace lost hydro production.
What's more, utilities that could previously dispatch bursts of hydro power during peak demand periods may need to rely more on fossil fuels than solar farms to replace those lost supplies, especially when solar output is lowest.
That said, growing volumes of battery storage capacity are being added throughout Europe's power grids, which will give utilities scope to store some surplus solar power that can then be supplied to customers at a later time.
These battery storage systems should also help cap the use of fossil fuel plants, and should also limit the overall rise in power sector emissions.
But with both wind and hydro supplies under pressure this year, Europe's power firms will likely continue to rely on fossil fuels to offset dips in clean power supplies, and result in an overall rise in fossil-fired generation from 2024.