Energy Market & Energy Statistics

Aenert news. Energy Market & Energy Statistics

Eurostat has published statistics on the production and use of nuclear energy in the EU in 2022, according to which the total production of nuclear heat amounted to 155,481 thousand tons of oil equivalent (toe).
This figure shows that the amount of nuclear heat produced in 2022 was 24.7% lower than in 2013 and 16.7% lower than in 2021.
21.8 % of all electricity produced in the EU in 2022 was generated by nuclear power plants.
France was the largest producer of nuclear power among the Member States with a share of 48.4 % of the EU total, ahead of Spain (9.6 %), Sweden (8.5 %) and Belgium (7.2 %). These four Member States produced 73.7 % of the total nuclear electricity in the Union.



The general trend in the EU over the last 15 years has been a decrease in nuclear power generation. The largest decrease was recorded in Germany (-79.3%), followed by France (-34.5%), Sweden (-22.5%), Bulgaria (-15.6%), Slovakia (-11.6%), Belgium (-5.9%) and Spain (-2.6%). And Lithuania completely closed its nuclear facilities in 2009. Despite this, there are countries that buck the trend by increasing nuclear electricity production between 2006 and 2022: Romania (+96.9%), the Netherlands (+19.8%), the Czech Republic (+19.1%), Hungary (+17.5%), Finland (+10.6%) and Slovenia (+1.0%).



Looking at the share of nuclear fuel in the electricity generation mix, France is also the leader (62.8 %), followed by Slovakia (60.2 %) and Belgium (46.4 %). On the other end of the spectrum are the Netherlands and Germany at 3.4 % and 6.0 %, respectively.

According to Eurostat, a total of 97% of nuclear material is recycled, while the remaining 3% of highly radioactive waste is vitrified and placed in containers for long-term storage. France is currently the only EU Member State operating a nuclear waste reprocessing plant.  



Uranium is a resource present on all five continents: 44% is found in the OECD countries, 22% in the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and 34% in the rest of the world. A closer look at the sources of uranium supply in the EU shows that 26.8% comes from Kazakhstan, followed by Niger (25,4%), Canada (22%), and Russia (16.9%). The remaining 9% is distributed between Uzbekistan, Australia, South Africa and Namibia. Only 0.1% of the uranium used in the EU was sourced in the EU itself.

By the Editorial Board