site.btaBulgaria Has EU’s 3rd Largest Annual Growth in Fossil Fuel Consumption in 2022

In 2022 Bulgaria had EU’s third largest annual growth in fossil fuel consumption, at 2.8 pp after Estonia (4.2 pp) and France (2.9 pp). Compared with 2021, in 2022, the largest, yet rather small, decreases in the share of fossil fuels in gross available energy were in Latvia (-3.7 pp), Slovakia (-2.1 pp), and Hungary (-1.9 pp). 
 
In 2022, the EU’s reliance on fossil fuels for its overall energy supply stood at 70.9%. This is a slight increase from the levels in 2021, where it stood at 69.9%. Since 1990, the first year for which data are available, it dropped by around 11.5 percentage points (pp), mostly due to the increase in renewable energy. 
 
In 2022, Malta (96.1%) remained the EU country with the highest share of fossil fuels in gross available energy, followed by Cyprus (89.3%) and the Netherlands (87.6%). Most of the other EU countries had shares between 50% and 85%. Only Sweden (30.4%) and Finland (38.3%) had shares below 50%.