The Netherlands second bottom in EU sustainable energy ranking

The Netherlands is a long way off reaching European targets on sustainable energy, the national statistics office CBS said on Thursday.

The figures, which date from 2014, show only 5.5% of the energy used in the Netherlands comes from sustainable sources, way below the official target of 14% by 2020.

Only France is further removed from reaching its 2020 target, the CBS says. A third of the countries which signed up for the the agreement have already reached their targets.

Top renewable energy user is Sweden (53%), where hydro electric power accounts for over 16% of energy usage and biomass from domestic waste accounts for nearly 3%.

By contrast in the Netherlands, just under 1% of household waste is processed into biomass for burning.

Investment

The CBS says the poor Dutch performance is also due to its geographical position, which means hydro-electric power is not an option. There is also less government support for alternative energy sources compared to countries like Germany and Denmark.

Since the figures were compiled, the Netherlands has drawn up plans to increase the amount of wind-generated power, which accounted for just 1% of total usage in 2014.

However, a leaked report last October indicated that around 12% of Dutch energy usage would come from renewable sources by 2020.