In 2017, renewable energy accounted for nearly 20% of the total energy used for heating and cooling in Malta, statistics by Eurostat – the European Union’s statistic agency, revealed.

While in EU, the average percentage in terms of renewable energy, of the total energy used for heating and cooling, stood at 19.5% in 2017, the percentage in Malta stood at 19.8%.

This shows a dramatic change from back in 2008. In 2008, only 1.7% of energy used for heating and cooling came from renewable energy sources in Malta, while the percentage in the EU at the time stood at 13.8%. This shows that Malta’s use of renewable energy in such sources rose and surpassed the EU’s average over the years.

The change to an upward trend for Malta seems to have started in 2010, as whereas in 2009 Malta’s percentage stood at just 2.5, 2010 saw this rise to 7.5%.

In four EU Member States, more than half of the total energy used for heating and cooling came from renewable energy sources in 2017: Sweden (69.1 %), Finland (54.8 %), Latvia (54.6 %) and Estonia (51.6 %).  In contrast, the lowest shares were in the Netherlands (5.9 %), Ireland (6.9 %) and the United Kingdom (7.5 %).