Solar panels – Photo by AleSpa
(LUXEMBOURG) – Renewable energy sources made up 41.2 per cent of the European Union’s gross electricity consumption in 2022, according to figures released Wednesday by the EU’s statistics agency Eurostat.
This is 3.4 percentage points (pp) more than in 2021 (37.8%) and is well ahead of other electricity-generation sources such as nuclear (less than 22%), gas (less than 20%) or coal (less than 17%).
In total, renewable energy sources increased by 5.7% from 2021 to 2022.
The figures show that wind and hydropower accounted for over two-thirds of the total electricity generated from renewable sources (37.5% and 29.9%, respectively).
The remaining one-third of electricity came from solar (18.2%), solid biofuels (6.9%) and other renewable sources (7.5%).
Solar power is the fastest-growing source: in 2008 it only accounted for 1% of the electricity consumed in the EU.
The majority of Sweden’s electricity consumption in 2022 came from renewable sources (83.3%, mostly hydro and wind) followed by Denmark (77.2%, mostly wind) and Austria (74.7%, mostly hydro). Shares above 50% were also registered in Portugal (61.0%), Croatia (55.5%), Latvia (53.3%) and Spain (50.9%).
At the other end of the scale, the lowest shares of electricity from renewable sources were reported in Malta (10.1%), Hungary (15.3%), Czechia (15.5%) and Luxembourg (15.9%).
