“Lithuania continues to rank near the bottom of the list of EU countries in terms of the share of renewables in the transport sector. Unfortunately, this is a sector where, despite the loud goals we declare, we are not getting out of the hole,” says Martynas Nagevičius, president of the Lithuanian Renewable Energy Confederation.
According to estimates from Eurostat, Latvia (a 3.3% share of renewables in transport) was second to last on the list, while Estonia was in the middle (8.5%). Sweden is the only country that has already reached the EU’s 2030 target of the 29% share of renewables within the final consumption of energy in the transport sector, with an average of 29.2%, compared to the EU average of 9.6%.
Nagevičius said he did not find the Eurostat figures surprising, given that this is not the first year that Lithuania’s efforts to promote renewable energy in the transport sector had been “modest.”
For the past several years in a row, Lithuania had managed to increase the share of renewables in the transport sector by a few percentage points, by raising the share of renewables in petrol and diesel, he said. However, he noted that renewable fuels are only one element of the drive for "green" energy in the transport sector.
“Electricity in the renewable portfolio accounts for only 0.08% of the total energy consumption in the sector, while the share of biomethane in Lithuania is 0%. To catch up with Sweden and other leading countries, real changes and efforts are needed to radically reduce dependence on oil by promoting the use of all types of RES – renewable fuels, electricity and, in the future, biomethane,” said Nagevičius.