EC Reports on energy transition progress in the EU

EC Reports on energy transition progress in the EU

CLECAT — 2022-11-18

News from Brussels

The European Commission published this week a series of reports and documents highlighting the progress made in implementing the Energy Union, notably a report on the achievement of the 2020 renewable energy targets, including in the transport sector.

On average, the overall renewable energy share has been increasing by 0.8 percentage points annually since 2011, with a much stronger increase of 2.2 percentage points between 2019 and 2020. For the transport sector, the shares reached 10.2% in 2020, increasing steadily over the last decade. Specifically, the development of biodiesel and bioethanol has led to a growth in biofuel consumption in total since 2016, with a significant increase of the share of advanced biofuels in recent years. The use of renewable electricity for road transport also increased significantly but remains minor in comparison to the other transport modes such as rail.

Analysing the efforts made by individual Member States to increase the share of renewables in transport, highest shares can be observed in Sweden, where the share stood at 31.9%, followed by Finland (13.4%) the Netherlands and Luxemburg (both 12.6%). Among all Member States, Greece (5.3%), Lithuania (5.5%), Poland and Hungary (both 6.6%) showed the lowest renewable share in transport in 2020.

The report notes a few best practices to further increase the use of renewable in transport: the carbon tax introduced in Sweden in 1991 could have helped the country to decarbonise its transport at a faster pace than other countries. The use of waste-based biofuels can also contribute in a sustainable way towards to the decarbonisation of transport, in particular in modes that are difficult to electrify, together with Renewable Fuels of Non-Biological Origin.