EU Agrees Deal To Raise Renewable Energy Target To 42.5% By 2030

The European Union member states and the European Parliament on Thursday reached a political agreement to raise the targeted share of renewable energy in the EU’s energy consumption to 42.5% by 2030, up from a current target of 32%.

The target is binding, Markus Pieper, a Member of the European Parliament, said on Twitter, adding that the deal also envisages faster approval processes for wind and solar projects.

“A good day for Europe’s energy transition,” Pieper said.

The provisional political agreement – part of the EU’s efforts to ditch the largger producer’s energy as soon as possible and become a net-zero bloc by 2050 – will now have to be endorsed by both the EU Council and the European Parliament to become law.

Under the deal reached today, the target of 42.5% renewable energy in the EU’s overall energy consumption by 2030 will have an additional 2.5% indicative top-up that would allow it to reach 45%.

Each EU member state will contribute to this common target, the EU Council said.

Under current targets, in force since December 2018, the EU-level target of renewable energy in overall energy consumption by 2030 is 32%.

According to Eurostat, renewable energy represented 21.8% of the energy consumed in the EU in 2021, down from 22.1% in 2020. The share of energy from renewable sources used in transport in the EU was 9.1% in 2021, down from 10.3% in 2020.

The share of renewable energy varies a lot among EU member states. For example, Sweden is the leader with more than 60% of its energy coming from renewable sources, while Luxembourg, Malta, and the Netherlands have just over 10% renewable energy use, per Eurostat data.

As part of today’s provisional agreement, the EU member states and the European Parliament provisionally agreed on more ambitious sector-specific targets in transport, industry, buildings, and district heating and cooling, to speed up renewables deployment in those sectors.