Greece beats France, UK on renewable energy consumption

Greece’s share of renewable energy consumption was at 15.4% in 2015, way ahead of other EU member states who have yet to reach their targets including Luxembourg (6%) Netherlands (8.2%), France (7.8%) Ireland and the United Kingdom (6.8%).

According to Eurostat data the average with the EU is 16.1%, with the share of renewables in the EU28 countries virtually doubled from 8.5%  in 2004 to 16.7% in 2015, while the goal is to reach 20% by 2020.

In Greece during the same period, the share of RES rose from 6.9% in 2004 to 13.5% in 2012, reaching 15.4 pct in 2015. Greece's target is to increase the share of renewables to 18% by 2020.

Among the EU member-states, renewables had the highest share of final energy consumption in Sweden (53.9%), Finland (39.3 pct), Latvia (37.6%) and Austria (32.1%). The lowest shares, conversely, were in Luxembourg and Malta (5 %), the Netherlands (5.8 %), Belgium (7.9 %) and the United Kingdom (8.2%).

Of the 28 EU member states only 11 have already met their 2020 targets for their share of renewables: E Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Croatia, Italy, Lithuania, Hungary, Romania, Finland and Sweden.