These conclusions are drawn in the Roadmap for Renewable Energy and in a report on the progress of renewable electricity. Costs are one important reason for not meeting the targets, although in some cases the costs of renewable sources is declining fast. “In particular, the failure to systematically include external costs in market prices gives an economically unjustified advantage to fossil fuels compared with renewables”, the Roadmap states. Also complexity, novelty and the decentralised nature of renewables are seen as obstacles.

The picture in the EU is really differentiated, according to the Roadmap due to ‘the absence of legally binding targets for renewable energies at EU level, the relatively weak EU regulatory framework for the use of renewables in the transport sector, and the complete absence of a legal framework in the heating and cooling sector’. While most of the Member States are lagging far behind, some show a lot of progress.

In power, nine EU countries (Denmark, Germany, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Luxemburg, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands) are on track, with some of them reaching their targets early.  Especially wind energy is ahead of schedule, while in recent years biomass electricity has been quickly catching up. In biofuels only two countries are on track (Germany and Sweden), while in the heating and cooling sector the potential is still far from exploited.