The FINANCIAL — The revised Renewable Energy Directive has revised upwards the EU’s 2030 renewable energy target from 32% to 42.5% (with an aim to increase it to 45%). Therefore, EU countries need to intensify their efforts to collectively comply with the new EU target for 2030, which requires increasing the share of renewable energy sources in the EU’s gross final energy consumption by almost 20 pp.
Sweden – the highest share of energy from renewable sources
Sweden leads among EU countries, with nearly two-thirds (66.0%) of its gross final energy consumption in 2022 derived from renewable sources. Sweden relied primarily on hydro, wind, solid and liquid biofuels, as well as heat pumps. Finland (47.9%) followed, also relying on hydro, wind and solid biofuels, ahead of Latvia (43.3%), which depended mostly on hydro. Both Denmark (41.6%), followed by Estonia (38.5%), got most of the renewables from wind and solid biofuels. Portugal (34.7%) relied on solid biofuels, wind, hydro and heat pumps, while Austria (33.8%) utilised mostly hydro and solid biofuels.
The lowest proportions of renewables were recorded in Ireland (13.1%), Malta (13.4%), Belgium (13.8%) and Luxembourg (14.4%).
In total, 17 of the 27 EU members reported shares below the EU average of 23.0% in 2022.
The EU reached a 23.0 % share of its gross final energy consumption from renewable sources in 2022, around 1.1 percentage points higher than in 2021. Despite this increase, the 23.0 % share remains almost 20 percentage points below the EU’s 2030 target, which was revised upwards from 32 % to 42.5 % (with a view to increase it to 45nbsp;%) by the EU directive 2023/2413 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources. Therefore, countries need to intensify their efforts to comply with the trajectory specified in their National Energy and Climate Plans required under Regulation 2018/1999 on the governance of the energy union and climate action. Figure 1 shows the latest data available for the share of renewable energies in gross final energy consumption.
.png)
Figure 1: Share of energy from renewable sources, 2022
(% of gross final energy consumption)
Source: Eurostat (nrg_ind_ren)
Sweden leads among EU countries, with nearly two-thirds (66.0 %) of its gross final energy consumption in 2022 derived from renewable sources. Sweden relied primarily on hydro, wind, solid and liquid biofuels, as well as heat pumps. Finland (47.9 %) followed, also relying on hydro, wind and solid biofuels, ahead of Latvia (43.3 %), which depended mostly on hydro. Both Denmark (41.6 %), followed by Estonia (38.5 %), got most of the renewables from wind and solid biofuels. Portugal (34.7 %) relied on solid biofuels, wind, hydro and heat pumps, while Austria (33.8 %) utilised mostly hydro and solid biofuels. The lowest proportions of renewables were recorded in Ireland (13.1 %), Malta (13.4 %), Belgium (13.8 %) and Luxembourg (14.4 %).
Wind and water provide most renewable electricity; solar is the fastest-growing energy source
The accounting rules in Directive (EU) 2018/2001 prescribe that electricity generated by hydro power and wind power have to be normalised to account for annual weather variations (hydro is normalised over the last 15 years and wind over the last 5 years, separating on-shore and off-shore wind normalisation). This article presents the results applying these accounting rules.
The growth in electricity generated from renewable energy sources during the period 2012 to 2022 largely reflects an expansion in two renewable energy sources across the EU, namely wind power and solar power. In 2022, renewable energy sources made up 41.2 % of gross electricity consumption in the EU, almost 4 percentage points higher than the previous year (37.5 % in 2021).
Wind and hydro power accounted for more than two-thirds of the total electricity generated from renewable sources (37.5 and 29.9 %, respectively). The remaining one-third of electricity generated was from solar power (18.2 %), solid biofuels (6.9 %) and other renewable sources (7.5 %). Solar power is the fastest-growing source: in 2008, it accounted for 1 %. This means that the growth in electricity from solar power has been dramatic, rising from just 7.4 TWh in 2008 to 210.3 TWh in 2022.
Almost one quarter of energy used for heating and cooling from renewable sources
In 2022, renewable energy accounted for 24.8 % of total energy use for heating and cooling in the EU, increasing from 11.7 % in 2004. Developments in the industrial sector, services and households contributed to this growth. Ambient energy captured by heat pumps for heating and renewable cooling are also taken into account.
9.6% of renewable energy used in transport activities in 2021
The EU agreed to set a common target of 29 % for the share of renewable energy (including liquid biofuels, hydrogen, biomethane, ‘green’ electricity, etc.) used in transport by 2030.
The average share of energy from renewable sources in transport increased from 1.6 % in 2004 to 9.6 % in 2022. Among the EU Member States, the share of renewable energy in transport fuel consumption ranged from highs of 29.2 % in Sweden and 18.8 % in Finland down to less than 5 % in Croatia (2.4 %), Latvia (3.1 %) and Greece (4.1 %). The EFTA country Norway also reported a high share of renewable energy in transport fuel consumption (23.7 %).
Discussion about this post