Energy for heating and cooling makes up around half of the EU’s total gross final energy consumption. In 2022, the share of energy from renewables in heating and cooling continued to rise, with the EU average standing at 24.8%, up 1.8 percentage points (pp) from 2021 (23.0%).
Sweden led the way when it came to renewables in heating and cooling, with a 69.3% share, followed by Estonia (65.4%). Both countries use mostly biomass and heat pumps. They are followed by Latvia (61.0%), which relies mostly on biomass.
In contrast, the lowest shares of renewable sources for heating and cooling were recorded in Ireland (6.3%), the Netherlands (8.6%) and Belgium (10.4%).
Compared with 2021, the largest increases were recorded by Malta (+5.2 pp), Luxembourg (+2.5 pp), and Ireland (+1.4 pp). On the other end of the scale, decreases were registered in Austria (-2.4 pp), Slovenia (-1.2 pp), and Cyprus (-1.0 pp).
In absolute terms, the gross final consumption of renewable energy for heating and cooling purposes in the EU has gradually increased over time, mostly due to the contribution of biomass and heat pumps. In the span of 10 years, the average share of energy from renewables for heating and cooling grew from 18.6% to 24.8% (+6.2pp). However, a major push is required to meet the new targets introduced by the EU Directive 2023/2413 of 18 October 2023 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources (RED III). This Directive requires EU countries to increase their annual average share of renewables in heating and cooling by at least 0.8 pp from 2021 to 2025 and by at least 1.1 pp from 2026 to 2030.
