The European Union has set a goal to become the world’s first carbon-neutral continent by 2050. Achieving this goal will require the greening of energy throughout Europe. Let’s see how far the EU has come.
The EU intended to have 20% of its “gross final energy consumption”—meaning all the energy needed to run industry, transportation, households, services, agriculture, forestry, and fisheries—come from renewable sources by 2020. The latest reports indicate that they achieved 19.7% by 2019.
From 2004 to 2019, the share of renewables in energy consumption went from 9.6% to 19.7%.
The top five EU states in terms of the share of renewables in total energy consumption are: Sweden – 56.4%, Finland – 43.1%, Latvia – 41.0%, Denmark – 37.2%, and Austria – 33.6%
The bottom five: Luxembourg – 7.0%, Malta – 8.5%, the Netherlands – 8.8%, Belgium – 9.9%, and Ireland – 12.0%
Electricity produced from renewables has grown over the last decade. Now, wind and hydro power account for 70% of electricity generated from renewables.
Solar power has been the fastest growing source of renewable electricity: growing from 1% in 2008 to 13% in 2019.
Source: European Commission
Information in this article was derived from the European Commission’s Eurostat website: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Renewable_energy_statistics