The UK lags behind EU counterparts to achieve 20%

renewable energy target

While some countries have almost hit their targets the UK still has a long way to
achieve its 15% renewable energy target by 2020.

The EU is more than halfway to reaching its 20% target of generating energy from
renewables by 2020, according to new figures published today by Eurostat.

The EU's 2009 directive on renewable energy set individual targets for all 27 member
states, with a goal for the EU of reaching a 20% share of total energy consumption from
renewable energy sources by 2020. Renewable energy targets take into consideration
member states' different starting points, renewable energy potential and economic
performance.

Renewable energy consumption rose 0.6% in the EU in 2008 to 10.3%, compared with
9.7% in 2007 and 8.8% in 2006. Of the EU's three biggest economies, France boasted the
highest share at 11% of gross final energy consumption generated by renewable energy
sources, followed by Germany's 8.9% and the UK's 2.2%.

This means that the UK is continuing to holdup behind its European counterparts and still
needs to boost renewable energy consumption by almost 13% points before reaching its
15% renewable energy target. While, France and Germany need to boost their share of
renewable energy consumption by 12% and 9.9% points respectively to reach their targets
of 23% and 18%.

Closest to achieving their renewable energy targets for share of renewable energy were
Romania, followed by Sweden, with rises of 3.6% and 4.6% points needed to reach their
respective renewable targets of 24% and 49% in 2020.

The EU has indicated that it might raise its 2020 renewable energy target to 30% in order
to boost global climate negotiations, should other major economies such as the US, China
and India agree to binding carbon emissions reduction targets.

UK renewable energy target – still a long way to reaching 15% by 2020

According to Eurostat, renewable energy sources cover solar, thermal and photovoltaic
energy, hydro - including tide, wave and ocean - energy, wind, geothermal energy and
biomass - including biological waste and liquid biofuels. The contribution of renewable
energy from heat pumps is also covered for the member states for which this information
was available.

The energy delivered to final consumers – industry, transport, households, services, and so
on – from these renewable energies is the nominator of the target. The highest share of
renewable energy in total consumption in 2008 was found in Sweden (44.4% of renewable
energy sources in total consumption), Finland (30.5%), Latvia (29.9%), Austria (28.5%)
and Portugal (23.2%), and the lowest in Malta (0.2%), Luxembourg (2.1%), the UK (2.2%),
the Netherlands (3.2%) and Belgium (3.3%).

Article source – BusinessGreen.com

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Description: The UK lags behind European countries in reaching its renewable energy
target of 15% by 2020. News on renewable energy from energy and carbon management
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