Portugal come third of the EU’s renewable energy ranking, behind Sweden and Austria.
Only in five EU countries does renewable energy account for more than 50% of consumption.
Portugal is one of them, according to Eurostat’s latest report, behind Austria where 73% of the energy consumed from renewables, followed by Sweden with 65%.
Then it’s Portugal and Denmark with 54% each and then Latvia.
This being Eurostat, the figures are from 2016 but they show Portugal slightly improving since 2015 when the percentage was 52.6%.
In March this year, Portugal received worldwide coverage for producing all of its energy from renewable sources for a short period.
The EU average has improved from 28.8% to 29.6%. Outside the EU, Iceland at 95.3% and Norway at 104.7% (it produces more than it consumes) stand out.
Malta’s shameful performance, only 6% of energy consumed was renewable energy, is not much bettered by the 10% in Luxembourg 7% in Hungary and 9% in Cyprus.
In total, electricity from renewable sources has contributed to 30% of the energy consumed in the European Union.
The most important source was hydroelectric, 36.9%. Wind energy creates 31.8% and solar energy, a mere 11.6%.
The remainder mostly is from biogas and geothermal energy.
