EU gas-fired power held up in 2025 as the rest of the world leaned on coal

EU gas-fired power held up in 2025 as the rest of the world leaned on coal Ember finds Europe defied a global coal tilt last year, leaving TTF-linked switching economics, not headlines about a coal revival, in charge of EUA demand. Ember's latest analysis, shared with Carbon Brief, put the much-discussed global "return to coal" at no more than 1.8% growth in coal power output this year, a worst-case figure rather than a base case⁴. That is the number to hold against every claim that the Iran war reset the world's fuel mix. It did not, at least not by much. The reason this matters for European traders is what it implies about gas. If coal's global comeback is capped near 1.8%, the displacement pressure on gas-fired generation is weaker than the bearish narrative assumed, and Europe's own switching math stays the marginal driver of EUA demand rather than any imported coal trend^4,7. The International Energy Agency framed the same direction from the supply side. Its Electricity 2026 report projected global power demand growing more than 3% a year on average through the rest of the decade, with coal's share of the mix eroded by gains in nuclear, renewables and natural gas³. The IEA expects renewables and nuclear together to reach 50% of the world's power mix by the end of this decade, gas growing alongside them³. Europe sits inside that gas-growing slice. Energy Monitor noted that gas-fired power keeps its appeal because it offers better grid stability than other sources, with the flexibility to start and stop quickly and the reliability of constant output⁷. That flexibility is exactly what a grid absorbing record renewable additions needs, and it is why European gas burn held up while the global story tilted toward coal. But the European call is fundamentally a TTF-versus-coal switching question, and the gas side of that ledger is not uniformly tight. ICE Endex TTF front-month traded near €49 on Wednesday (2026-06-10), still elevated by the standards of recent years but well off winter peaks⁶. UK NBP sat close to €51 on the same morning⁶. The bearish signal on gas comes from across the Atlantic. EIA's Short-Term Energy Outlook had Lower-48 marketed gas production averaging 117.2 Bcf/d in the first quarter, up 4% on a year earlier, with full-year output forecast to rise 3% and the Permian alone seen at 29.2 Bcf/d, 6% above 2025¹. The agency expects Permian growth to accelerate to 10% next year once takeaway constraints ease, and Haynesville to add 6% this year and 8% next¹. That supply build keeps a lid on Henry Hub, which traded around $3.22 on Wednesday (2026-06-10)¹. It reaches European switching only through the Atlantic LNG arbitrage, and at current TTF levels that arb is the transmission belt to watch rather than US storage on its own. One contrarian positioning read flags Henry Hub front-month as bearish on a storage driver, which fits the production picture but says little directly about European burn. China complicates the simple coal-versus-gas frame. Its mostly coal-fired thermal generation rose just 1.5% in 2024 to 6.34 trillion kWh, the slowest growth in nine years outside the pandemic, and December thermal output actually fell 2.6% on the year⁵. Overall Chinese power demand grew 4.6%, meaning renewables took almost all the incremental load⁵. Greenpeace analysts argued renewables could meet all of China's new demand growth in 2025⁵. So the global coal narrative is softer than the headlines suggested in both directions. The IEA and Ember see coal's share falling, China's coal burn flattening, and gas holding a structural role in flexible generation^3,4⁵. For Europe specifically, that leaves the carbon chain intact: TTF and NBP set the switching level, the switching level shapes the generation mix, and the mix drives EUA demand. ICE EUA traded near €75 on Wednesday (2026-06-10), with the European switching economics, not a coal revival, the live variable⁷. The supply wildcard remains LNG. Qatar's Ras Laffan was still running at reduced capacity after damage earlier this year that took out roughly 20% of global LNG supply, according to one market read². JKM near $18.88 keeps Asian demand competing for the same cargoes that would otherwise relieve TTF. Watch whether US production growth and any Ras Laffan recovery loosen the Atlantic arb enough to pull TTF down toward levels where coal-to-gas switching deepens, because that, not a coal headline, is what moves EUA demand from here^2,1.