Energy Market & Energy Statistics

Aenert news. Energy Market & Energy Statistics

According to newly published statistics by Eurostat, renewable energy sources accounted for 23% of the energy consumed in the EU in 2022. Compared to 2021 (21.9%), the increase is just over one percent. Growth in the share of energy from renewable sources used in transportation increased by only 0.5%, from 9.1% in 2021 to 9.6% in 2022.

Looking by country, Sweden is the clear leader by a wide margin with almost two-thirds (66.0%) of its gross final energy consumption coming from renewable sources, mainly using hydropower, wind, as well as solid and liquid biofuels. Finland (47.9 %), also relying on hydropower, wind and solid biofuels, was second (47.9 %).



Latvia (43.3%), which mainly counts on hydropower, rounds out the top three. Denmark (41.6 %) and Estonia (38.5 %) got fourth and fifth place, respectively. As can be seen, the entire top five is made up of northern European neighboring countries that have good hydro and wind resources.

The leading southern European country with a decent result in terms of renewable energy is Portugal with 34.7% of renewable sources in the energy mix, ranking 6th in the list, followed by Austria (33.8 %).

The lowest shares of renewable energy were registered in Ireland (13.1 %), Malta (13.4 %), Belgium (13.8 %) and Luxembourg (14.4 %).



In 2022, the share of renewable energy in gross electricity consumption in the EU was 41.2 % compared to 37.5 % in 2021. Looking at the overall distribution of renewable electricity generation, wind and hydropower accounted for more than two-thirds of the total electricity generated from renewable sources (37.5 % and 29.9 % respectively), ahead of solar power (18.2 %), solid biofuels (6.9 %) and other renewable sources (7.5 %). However, if we take the growth of renewable energy from 2012 to 2022, wind power and solar power are dominating. The increase in electricity production from solar energy was particularly significant – from only 7.4 TWh in 2008 to 210.3 TWh in 2022.

Sweden produced the highest amount of electricity from renewable sources at 83.3%, followed by Denmark (77.2%) and Austria (74.7%). At the other end of the scale, the countries with the lowest share of electricity from renewable sources – Malta (10.1%), Hungary (15.3%), the Czech Republic (15.5%), Luxembourg (15.9%) and Cyprus (17.0%).

It is worth noting that Norway, which is not part of the EU, generated more electricity from renewable sources than the total amount of electricity it consumed in 2022.



In 2022, renewable energy sources accounted for 24.8% of the total energy used for heating and cooling in the EU, up from 11.7 % in 2004. The average share of renewable energy in transportation increased from 1.6% in 2004 to 9.6% in 2022. This growth should be accelerated in the next years, given that the EU has decided to set an overall target for the share of renewable energy used in transport at 29% by 2030. Sweden has the highest renewable energy share in transport (29.2%) and Greece the lowest (4,1%).

By the Editorial Board