Last Updated on Wednesday, 30 December, 2020 at 8:49 pm by Andre Camilleri
A Eurostat report shows that energy accumulated through renewable sources accounted for 25.7% of the energy used for heating and cooling systems in Malta in 2019. This is 4.6% higher than the EU average.
On Tuesday, the EU published statistics showing the percentage of the share of energy that is used to fuel heating and cooling systems in households, industrial processes, hospitals, schools and other establishments coming from renewable sources across all member states during 2019.
The report shows that the EU average stands at 22.1%, which is almost double the amount from 2004 (11.7%), and a 0.9% increase from 2018 where the average stood at 21.2%.
The state that registered the highest share of renewable sources in heating and cooling in 2019 was Sweden standing at a commendable 66.1%, followed by Latvia (57.8%) and Finland (57.5%).
On the flip side, the lowest ranking state was Ireland with a 6.3% share of renewable energy.
Malta found itself right in the middle of this scale with renewable energy making up 25.7% of the energy that is used for heating and cooling. This is a 2.7% increase from the 2018 report, making Malta part of the twenty state members that experienced an increase between 2018 and 2019.
Notably, in 2019, Eurostat statistics showed that renewably sourced energy made up just 8.5% of the overall amount of energy that was generated that year in Malta, placing it second to last among all EU member states. The EU average stood at 19.7%.
Yet, there is still a noticeable increase from year to year in these statistics which can be paralleled to the gradual increase in amount of renewable energy that accounts for heating and cooling in Malta.
In 2017, renewable energy made up 7.2% of overall energy generated in Malta which went up to 7.9% in 2018.
Renewable energy has been highly debated among Maltese politicians at both a local and European level.
The recently elected Energy Minister Miriam Dalli has been at the forefront of such discussions on both levels. She has insisted that Malta needs to continue diversifying its energy mix, not only to ensure energy independence but also to increase its share of renewable sources of energy.
