Renewables target recedes as share of energy slips in 2017
28.1% of the energy consumed in 2017 was produced by renewable sources, slightly below the previous year and still a long way short of the official target of 31%.
In Portugal, 28.1% of energy consumed in 2017 was from renewable sources, slightly below the previous year and still a long way short of the official target of 31%, according to data published on Tuesday by Eurostat.
According to the European Union statistical office, on average in the EU 17.5% of final energy consumption in 2017 was from renewable sources – below the target set for the whole EU of 20%.
Portugal occupies the second place in a group of six countries whose proportions of renewable energy is between 20% and 30%, behind Estonia (29.2%).
According to Eurostat, Portugal is 2.9 percentage points short of meeting its own national target, with the proportion of renewable energies slipping slightly from 2016 (28.4%).
Sweden had the highest proportion of final energy from renewable sources (54.5%), followed by Finland (41.0%), Latvia (39.0%), Denmark (35.8%) and Austria (32.6%). At the bottom of the table were Luxembourg (6.4%), the Netherlands (6.6%) and Malta (7.2%).
Each member state has set a national objective to 2020, taking into account the differing potentials renewable energy; 11 achieved their own target in 2017.
Of the remaining 17 member states, those that fell furthest short of their particular 2017 objective were the Netherlands (7.4 percentage points short), France (6.7 points short), Ireland (5.3), the UK (4.8), Luxembourg (4.6), Poland (4.1) and Belgium (3.9).
