Malta had the highest growth in energy consumption in the EU over the last four years, according to new Eurostat figures released in Brussels.

As it grapples with an economic recession, the EU as a whole saw its energy consumption decline by an average of -5.7 per cent between 2008 and 2011 but in Malta, despite hikes in the electricity bills, consumption grew by a staggering 17 per cent over the same period.

Eurostat said that, in 2011, Malta consumed the equivalent of 1.1 million toe (tonne of oil equivalent), an increase of 100,000 toe over 2008.

A tonne of oil equivalent is a standardised unit used to estimate the different fuels used, based on energy content. These include fuels used to generate electricity and those for transport and bunkering.

According to Eurostat, the evolution of energy consumption is directly related to the performance of the economy.

It said that, on the whole, the economic slowdown observed in the EU since the beginning of the financial crisis was also visible in the evolution of energy consumption.

“Malta was one of four EU member states which, between 2008 and 2011, saw an increase in energy consumption,” a Eurostat official said.

“The only other member states in Malta’s situation, although to a lesser degree, were, Estonia (+4.8 per cent), Poland (+3.2 per cent) and Belgium (+0.1 per cent).”

On the other hand, 23 member states registered decreases with the largest drops seen in Lithuania (-24.5 per cent), Ireland and Greece (both -12.3 per cent), Spain and the UK (both -9.4 per cent).

Eurostat placed Malta as the country with the highest energy dependency rate in the EU, which, in 2011, stood at 101 per cent. The island is followed by Luxembourg (97 per cent) and Cyprus (93 per cent).

This means that Malta imported all its energy needs, either through oil to fire its power stations or fuel for its cars.

According to Eurostat, a value greater than 100 per cent occurs when net imports exceed gross consumption.

“In this case, energy products are placed in stocks and not used in the year of import,” Eurostat said.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.