Steady Growth for Europe's Renewable Energy

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--The share of renewables in the European Union's (EU's) gross final consumption of energy grew to 17% in 2016, up from 16.7% in 2015.

The new figure from the EU's statistics agency Eurostat shows that renewables have doubled their share since 2004, when records began. The EU's target is to obtain 20% of energy in gross final consumption of energy from renewable sources by 2020 and at least 27% by 2030. The primary production of renewable energy within the EU's 28 member states in 2016 was 211 million tonnes of oil equivalent (toe).

"This positive development has been prompted by the legally binding targets for increasing the share of energy from renewable sources," Eurostat stated. "While the EU as a whole is on course to meet its 2020 targets, some Member States will need to make additional efforts to meet their obligations as regards the two main targets: the overall share of energy from renewable sources in the gross final energy consumption and the specific share of energy from renewable sources in transport."

The highest share of renewables in the final energy mix by far was recorded in Sweden with more than half (53.8%), followed by Finland (38.7%), Latvia (37.2%), Austria (33.5%) and Denmark (32.2%). At the other end of the scale, the lowest proportions of renewables were registered in Luxembourg (5.4%), Malta and the Netherlands (both 6%), Belgium (8.7%), and the U.K. and Cyprus (both at 9.3%). The Netherlands and France are the furthest away from their renewable goals, Eurostat stated.

Electricity from renewable sources contributed more than one-quarter (29.6%) to total EU-28 gross electricity consumption in 2016. Hydropower remains the oldest and most important source of green power in Europe, but its contribution has largely remained unchanged since 2006 and is now followed closely by wind power. The quantity of electricity generated in the EU-28 from solar and wind was 44.4 times and 3.7 times as high in 2016 as it had been in 2006. From 2006 to 2016 the expansion in renewables has been down to increased wind power, solar and solid biofuels (including renewable wastes). In this timeframe, solar power has risen rapidly from 0.3% to 11.6%. Tide, wave and ocean remains a fledgling market sector, Eurostat found, and "contributed just around 0.05% of the total electricity generated from renewable energy sources in the EU-28 in 2016."

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