Iceland is the greenest energy country in Europe

Probably not many of our readers are aware of the interesting fact that apart from the Scandinavian countries, Latvia is the greenest energy country in the European Union (EU). Only Sweden and Finland have a larger share of green energy in their gross energy consumption. However, the two greenest energy countries in Europe are Iceland and Norway (who are not members of the EU, but members of the European Free Trade Association; EFTA).

On the graph above you can see the share of renewable energy (percentage) in gross final energy consumption of each country within the EU and EFTA (the bars show the top-20 countries).

Iceland and Norway are clearly the leaders, with 77% and 69% renewable energy share respectively (in gross energy consumption). Having in  mind that no country in the world generates as much green power per capita as Iceland, it is not surprising that Iceland has the highest share of renewable energy in the gross energy consumption of all the states within EU and EFTA (with regard to energy consumption, Iceland is actually the greenest of all countries in the world).

Have in mind that the average share of renewable energy in the gross energy consumption of all the countries within the EU is currently close to 16%. And EU has the official and binding goal of increasing this share to 20% no later than 2020.

It is also worth noting that there are European countries outside of EU and EFTA that have very high share of renewable energy in their gross consumption mix (as can be seen on the graph at left). This especially applies to Albania (31%) and Montenegro (37%), which puts these countries in 6th and 8th place respectively (on the European list).

It is also interesting how extremely low the share of renewable energy is in Russia’s gross energy consumption (even hough Russia is the world’s fifth largest hydropower producing country). Also note how low the share of renewable energy is in countries like the UK and Holland. They need to do much better! Finally, note that not all European countries are included on the graph (countries that are not included in the data published by Eurostat, apart from Russia).

Main sources:
Eurostat – Information about consumption of energy
Eurostat – Share of renewable energy in gross final energy consumption
Eurostat – Energy from renewable sources (table 1).

European countries not included on the list above:
Andorra, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Lichtenstein, Moldova, Monaco, San Marino, Ukraine, and the Vatican.