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11 EU Member States Have Already Achieved Their 2020 Targets On Renewable Energy, But Malta Still Trails Behind

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As more and more European countries reach (and even exceed) their 2020 goals in renewable energy consumption, other countries are still struggling to achieve their own targets. Malta is among the lot at the bottom of that list.

According to Eurostat findings published earlier today, the share of energy from renewable sources in gross final consumption of energy for 2016 reached 17% in the European Union. That’s double the share found back in 2004 (8.5%), the first year for which such data was available. The EU’s target for 2020 is to push that number up to 20%, and to have it reach at least 27% by 2030. 

Since 2004, the share of renewable sources has grown significantly in all Member States. Since 2015, it increased in 15 of the 28 states. Sweden leads the fray by a mile, with more than half (53.8%) of its energy coming from renewable sources in 2016. Finland (38.7%), Latvia (37.2%), Austria (33.5%) and Denmark (32.2%) followed suite. 

At the opposite end of the scale, however, lie countries like Belgium, Luxembourg, The Netherlands… and Malta. The latter is currently sitting at 6%.

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Each Member State has its own Europe 2020 target, and Malta’s lies at 10%. 

The available data has shown that the tiny Mediterranean island has been gradually improving its share of energy from renewable sources, going up by an average of 0.5% since 2013. When such data started being compiled all the way back in 2004, Malta started off at the bottom of the pile, with a miserly 0.1% share of energy from renewable sources. But while that number has never stopped improving, the looming 10% target which needs to be reached in the next two years is a reminder that Malta needs to up its renewable energy game.

Hope is however on the horizon, and it all lies in the context of things. The average increase in the number of PV installations for the past five years has been an astounding 328%, so an added awareness and determination to act upon it all is definitely present.

Still trailing behind 2020 goals, Malta is also still performing better than other countries in certain fields. For example, when it came to the total share of energy from renewable sources in transport, Malta beat big players like Spain, Ireland and the United Kingdom. 

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The renewable energy sources which were covered in the Eurostat research are solar thermal and photovoltaic energy, hydro (including tide, wagve and ocean energy), wind, geothermal energy and all forms of biomass (including biological waste and liquid biofuels). 

The full statistics of the renewable energy results are available online.

What do you make of these latest findings? Let us know in the comments below!

READ NEXT: The Rise Of Solar Energy In Malta Has Been Meteoric

Lovin Malta's Head of Content, Dave has been in journalism for the better half of the last decade. Prefers Instagram, but has been known to doomscroll on TikTok. Loves chicken, women's clothes and Kanye West (most of the time).

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