The consumption of biofuels, especially those dedicated to transport, slightly increased in 2016 in the European Union.
As we can see from the preliminary estimates of EuroObserv´ER, this growth stood at 14,4 Mtoe (million tons of oil equivalent), the equivalent of one growth of 1,3% year-on-year after having stabilized between 2014 and 2015.
The main responsible for this growth is the biodiesel.
If you want to see the EurObserv´ER report you can do it here
According to the data obtained from the EurObserv´ER report, biodiesel consumption increased by 2,4%, reaching 11,6 Mtoe.
By contrast, bioethanol consumption decreased by 3,1% and stood at 2,6 Mtoe.
In these cases, the distribution (referring to the energy content) between the different types of biofuels is undoubtedly dominated by the biodiesel sector.
Also, you can see the breakdown of biofuel sources for the year 2016, which is as follows:
Those already mentioned above as the bioethanol and biodiesel that contribute a 18,4% and 80,6% respectively.
Having variations of 79,8% in 2015 for biodiesel and 19,2% also in the same year for bioethanol, although here it must be taken into account that it is mixed directly with gasoline or converted beforehand in ETBE (Substitute for MTEB, a gasoline additive that increases the octane number and is used for “super unleaded” type gasoline).
On the other hand, we have the biogas with 1% maintaining this percentage in 2015, which is equivalent to 138 Ktoe (thousands of equivalent tons of oil).
We can also count on the consumption of pure vegetable oil, although its use as fuel was insignificant.
The countries that grew the most
France and UK They were the countries with the highest growth rate while Germany was able to remain stable.
In the case of France, in 2016 the consumption of biofuels reached 3.115 Ktoe, which means a 4% increase over the previous year.
This time, the bioethanol grew more than biodiesel (+ 9,3% to 474 Ktoe and + 3,1% to 2.641 Ktoe respectively) although the latter continues to be the majority, with a total of 84,8%.
By contrast, United Kingdom consumed in 2016 708 million liters of biodiesel and 759 million liters of bioethanol for transportation.
If we look at volume, the consumption of biodiesel increased by 5,8% compared to 2015 while that of bioethanol fell 4,5%.
However, Sweden It is the country in the European Union with the highest per capita consumption of biofuels.
The rate of incorporation of biofuels that satisfy the sustainability criteria reached 19% in 2016 compared to 15% in 2015, according to the Swedish Energy Agency.
Total biodiesel achieved a growth of 34,4% since the consumption of this increased from 923.470 tons to 1.240,776 tons.
However, bioethanol consumption decreased in volume by 21,7%, going from 216.570 to 169.614 tons.
In addition, Sweden is also the country with the highest consumption of biogas for the automotive sector, with 89,058 tonnes in 2016.
So that you can see some of this data first hand, I leave below a map and a table where you can see the consumption of biofuels destined for transport in the European Union for the year 2016.
Units are in toe (tonne of oil equivalent).
EuroObserv´ER
EurObserv´ER also indicates that the consumption of these biofuels in the main economic partners of the European Union such as The United States, China and Canada, bioethanol dominates since the EU was in the lead in the world consumption of biodiesel in 2015 and in third place behind the USA and Brazil in the case of bioethanol.
Likewise, the certified consumption by the Member States would be around 13,3 Mtoe, which is equivalent to 92,5% of the total consumption of biofuels.
All that remains is for all these types of biofuels to continue advancing and accommodating in our lives to reduce as much as possible other more harmful energy sources.
Let's wait for the EurObserv'ER report this year (2017) to see how the consumption of biofuels has changed.