Eleven European countries have reached or surpassed their 2020 renewable energy targets

Eleven European countries have already reached their 2020 renewable energy targets, with Sweden, according to official data released on Tuesday.

In 2017, renewables accounted for 17.5 percent of final energy consumption in the European Union, up 0.5 percentage points year-on-year, and their share has more than doubled since 2004, according to Eurostat data.

In its “Europe 2020” strategy, the EU plans to reach 20 percent of energy consumed from green sources (hydro, wind, solar, biomass, etc.), with each country having its own objectives, depending on its starting position and growth potential.

Eleven countries have already reached or exceeded them, including Sweden -which tops the table with more than half (54.5 percent) of its consumption from coming from renewable energies, exceeding its target of 50 percent – next is Finland (41 percent) and Denmark (35.8 percent). 

At the opposite end of the table lies the Netherlands (6.4 percent green energy) and France (16.3 percent)  leaving them 7.4 and 6.7 percentage points behind their respective goals.

Of all the electricity used in the EU 30.7 percent comes from green sources, in particular from wind power, which, in 2017, dethroned hydropower as the leading source of renewable energy. Almost one fifth of heating sources in the EU came from renewable energy in 2017.

In addition, 7.6 percent of the energy used in transport came from renewable energies in 2016 (biofuels, hydrogen, green electricity, etc.), with a target of 10 percent in 2020.  Under its Paris Climate Agreement obligations the European Union is committed to a target of 32 percent renewable energy consumption by 2030.