Malta had the lowest share of renewable energy sources in gross electricity consumption within the European Union for the year 2023, Eurostat statistics published on Friday show.
Eurostat stated that in 2023, renewable energy sources accounted for 45.3% of gross electricity consumption in the EU, as it added that this was a “significant 4.1 percentage points increase from 2022”.
Eurostat said that this increase marks the largest annual increase in the share of renewable energy in gross electricity consumption since the time series began in 2004. It added that the annual increases in 2022 of 3.5 percentage points and 2020 of 3.3 percentage points were the second and third largest annual increases respectively.
It continued that the top renewable energy sources were wind with 38.5% of the total, hydro-power with 28.2%, and solar power with 20.5%. Solid biofuels and other renewable sources accounted for 6.2% and 6.6% respectively, Eurostat added, as it commented that the growth in renewable electricity over the past decade was largely achieved by the expansion of wind and solar power.
The countries with the highest shares included Austria with 87.8%, Sweden with 87.5%, and Denmark with 79.4%.
Malta came in with the lowest share at 10.7%, followed by Cyprus with 16.4%, and Luxembourg with 18%.
Malta also had the lowest share of renewable energy sources in the year 2022 according to Eurostat statistics, during which year Malta had a share of 10.1%. Malta has consistently ranked in the bottom places of such EU statistics. For the year 2021, Malta’s share was recorded as being 12.2%, which had the country listed as the second lowest in terms of renewable energy sources share in the EU for that year.
Previous reports have stated that Malta needed to purchase carbon credits from other countries in order to offset fossil fuel emissions and reach renewable energy targets, as was the case in the year 2020. It has also been reported that between 2013 and 2020, Malta purchased around €1.4 million worth of annual emission allocations from Bulgaria as well as around €2 million worth of credits from Estonia in early 2020, with the latter resulting in Malta being able to surpass its renewable energy target for 2020.
