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Germany Says 17% of 2010 Power Consumption Was Met By Renewable Energy

eng_news27Renewable energy accounted for 16.9% of Germany’s gross electricity consumption in 2010. As the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reported at the start of the European Week of Sustainable Energy (April 11-15), this is a more than fourfold increase on 1990. By contrast, nuclear energy accounted for 23.3% of Germany’s total electricity consumption in 2010.

Comparable EU data on electricity consumption is available up until 2008. According to Eurostat, the European statistical office, Germany’s renewable energy share amounted to 15.4% in 2008, slightly below the EU average of 16.7%. Austria was the EU country with the highest sustainable energy share: Here 62.0% of gross electricity consumption was met by renewables in 2008. The highest increase on the year 1990 was reported in Denmark, where the renewable share rose from 2.6% to 28.7% (2008).

In 2008, the electricity generated by nuclear energy expressed in terms of gross electricity consumption was highest in the EU Member States France (83.2%), Lithuania (76.4%) and the Slovak Republic (56.7%). In Germany the corresponding share amounted to 24.1%. In 12 EU Member States – including Austria, Ireland and Poland – no electricity was generated using nuclear power.

The national gross electricity consumption represents the total amount of electricity generated within a country plus imports and exlcuding exports. The 2010 figure published for Germany’s renewable electricity generation is based on data of the Arbeitsgruppe Erneuerbare Energien-Statistik (AGEE-Stat – Working group on renewable energies-statistics) and the Arbeitsgruppe Energiebilanzen (AGEB – Working group on energy balances), the corresponding 2010 figure for electricity generated from nuclear energy is based on AGEB data and own calculations of Destatis.

The Federal Statistical Office Germany has published a leaflet "Renewable Energy in Europe" to mark the European Week of Sustainable Energy. This leaflet includes further data on energy and electricity generation and consumption in Europe.

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