Malta’s progress in increasing its share of renewable energy appears to have stalled in recent years, with new EU data showing that Malta has barely moved the needle since 2020, remaining planted at the bottom of the European table.

A report published by Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office, earlier this week shows that only 10.1% of Malta’s energy came from renewable sources such as solar or wind energy in 2022, the most recent year for which data is available.

This is comfortably the lowest rate in Europe, well behind Hungary, Czechia and Luxembourg who are all at 15%. It is also far below the EU-wide average of 41%.

Not only has Malta failed to climb up the rankings, but the data suggests that Malta has made little progress since 2020, when 9.5% of its energy was generated through renewable sources.

This means that its share only grew by just over half a percentage point in three years, after growing more steadily in most previous years.

The data shows that Malta’s share of renewable energy was negligible until 2012, when it climbed over 1% for the first time. It was then bumped up to 3% in 2014, going on to grow by almost 1% in most subsequent years.

According to separate national data, the vast majority of renewable energy generated in Malta, some 97.5%, consists of solar energy generated through photovoltaic panels.

NSO’s data might shed some light on why Malta’s share of renewable energy appears to have plateaued.

While the production of energy from PV panels has grown year upon year, increasing by almost 34,000 megawatt-hours between 2021 and 2022 alone, it is nonetheless being outpaced by the increase in energy produced by Malta’s power plants, which has ballooned by 44,000 megawatt-hours during the same period.

Malta relying on investment in offshore farms

Malta faces a race against time to beef up its investment in renewable energy, with the EU last year warning Malta that it will force an end to the country’s blanket energy subsidies if it does not increase its sources of renewable energy soon.

Authorities are banking heavily on Malta’s offshore capabilities for this, publishing a national policy for offshore renewable energy which would allow floating wind or solar farms in six zones in Malta’s surrounding waters.

Developments into this project are expected in the coming weeks, with authorities having promised that an expression of interest would be published early this year.