By Paul Homewood
A puff piece for renewables in Euro News:
Renewable energy consumed in the EU keeps growing, but not as fast as it should to meet 2030 targets.
Renewable energy made up 24.5% of EU energy use last year, a new record, but still far from the target set for 2030.
Spain is the only country among the bloc’s four largest economies to stand above EU average.
Among EU countries, Sweden used the most energy coming from renewables. Its main sources were solid biofuels, hydropower and wind.
Neighbouring Finland is second, with 50.8% of its energy coming from renewables, followed by another nordic country, Denmark, with 44.9%
The 2023 result is a new EU record, up 7% compared to 10 years ago – but it remains 18 points shy of the 42.5% target set for 2030.
Reaching that goal requires an annual growth of 2.6%, while the average year-on-year increase in the last decade has only been 0.79%.
The report excludes most of the data, thus missing the real story, which is that renewable energy is still no more than a side show in Europe.
For a start, their 24% renewables figure includes bio and hydro, that have always supplied significant amounts of energy, which have changed little over time. Take these out and and you are left with just 12% coming from wind and solar in 2023.
(For clarification, Euro News are referring to 2023, when they say “last year”. The article is originally dated Dec 2024, though updated since. The figures below are from the BP Review and are slightly different to those claimed in the article)
BP Energy Review
Since 2010, wind and solar have increased from 1.62 to 6.80 exajoules:
But the most significant change has been a drop of 14% in total energy consumption, most of it since 2021. This has helped to push up the share of renewables, but is disastrous for the EU’s economy as a whole. As has often been argued, reduced energy consumption is a mark of economic decline, not a good thing.
