In 2023, renewable energy sources accounted for 45.3% of gross electricity consumption in the EU, a significant 4.1 percentage points (pp) increase from 2022. This marks the largest annual increase in the share of renewable energy in gross electricity consumption since the time series began in 2004. In addition, the annual increases in 2022 (3.5 pp) and 2020 (3.3 pp) were the second and third largest annual increases, respectively.
Wind (38.5% of the total) and hydro power (28.2%) accounted for more than two-thirds of the total electricity generated from renewable sources. Solar power followed, contributing 20.5%, while solid biofuels and other renewable sources accounted for 6.2% and 6.6%, respectively. The growth in renewable electricity over the past decade was largely achieved by the expansion of wind and solar power. Solar power is the fastest-growing source, rising from just 7.4 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2008 (representing only 1% of the total) to 252.1 TWh in 2023.
Source dataset: nrg_ind_ured
Electricity from renewables dominates in Austria and Sweden
Data show that more than 75% of electricity consumed in 2023 was generated from renewable sources in Austria (87.8%, mostly hydro), Sweden (87.5%, mostly hydro and wind) and Denmark (79.4%, mostly wind). Shares above 50% were also registered in Portugal (63.0%), Croatia (58.8%), Spain (56.9%), Latvia (54.3%) and Finland (52.4%).
At the other end of the scale, the share of electricity from renewable sources was less than 20% in Malta (10.7%), Czechia (16.4%), Luxembourg (18.0%) and Hungary (19.5%).
Source dataset: nrg_ind_ren
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Methodological notes
- Hydro power excludes pumping and is averaged over several years to smooth out the effects of meteorological variation (‘normalised’). Wind is also normalised. Before 2021, only total wind production was normalised, while from 2021 onwards this normalisation takes place separately for on-shore and off-shore wind. Solar power includes solar photovoltaics and solar thermal electricity generation. All other renewables include electricity generation from gaseous and liquid biofuels, renewable municipal waste, geothermal, and tide, wave and ocean.
- If a country generates more electricity from renewables than it consumes in total, the share can surpass 100% (e.g. Norway). In this calculation, the numerator represents the gross electricity production from renewable sources, while the denominator accounts for the gross electricity production from all sources plus imports minus exports.