In 2021, the EU aims to reach 21.8% of gross final energy consumption from renewable sources. According to data from the European Statistics Office (Eurostat) of the European Commission, a decrease of 0.3 percentage points was recorded compared to 2020, when a decrease of 22.1% was recorded, the first time a decrease was recorded.
In view of the EU objective currently set at 32% for 2030 by Directive 2018/2001 of December 11, 2018 on the use of energy from renewable sources, Eurostat indicates that the percentage of 21.8% registered in 2021 is still far below Target. In this context, countries should intensify their efforts to comply with the trajectory required by the EU, even more so if one takes into account that in 2021 the European Commission released its proposal to revise the Renewable Energy Directive , where he wants to increase this objective. up to 40%, and REPowerEU plans to increase this target to 45% in 2022.
Sweden records highest percentage of renewable energy
In terms of energy from renewable sources in gross final energy consumption, Sweden will record the highest 62.6% share in the EU in 2021, relying mainly on a combination of biomass, hydropower, wind, heat pumps and liquid biofuels. does.
Sweden is followed by Finland (43.1%) and Latvia (42.1%) (both using mainly biomass and hydropower); Estonia (37.6%, mainly dependent on biomass and wind); Austria (36.4%, mainly hydropower and biomass) and Denmark (34.7%, mainly biomass and wind).
Furthermore, Eurostat data shows that more than half of the member states score below the EU average. Notably, 15 of the 27 EU countries recorded a percentage lower than the EU average in 2021 (Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland, Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, Netherlands, Poland and Slovakia).
The lowest share of renewable energy was recorded in Luxembourg (11.7%), Malta (12.2%), Netherlands (12.3%), Ireland (12.5%) and Belgium (13%).
