+3% the increase in EU biofuel trasport consumption in 2011

by   Luisa Daidone

July 25, 2025

The annual Biofuels Barometer is published by Eurobserver.

Biofuel consumption in transport continued to increase in the European Union. According to first available figures, it should stabilise at around 13.6 Mtoe (millions of tonnes of oil equivalent) in 2011, compared to 13.2 Mtoe of consumption in 2010. It is too early to say whether all this consumption meets the Renewable Energy Directive’s sustainability criteria, because the majority of the sustainability systems had yet to be set up in 2011 (see insert p. 47).

While consumption continued to increase in Europe, the growth of biofuel consumption in transport steadily slipped. Growth was only 3.o % between 2010 and 2011, down from 10.7% between 2009 and 2010, 24.6% between 2008 and 2009 and 41.7% between 2007 and 2008. The reason for this downslide is the 2020 target that requires less effort than that of the 2003 Biofuel Direc­tive (which aimed at a 5.75% share in 2010) and has also pushed back the date by which Member States must incorporate biofuel into their national markets. Today’s priority is to ensure that the biofuel consumed within their national boundaries meets the sustainability criteria set in the Directive. Thus Germany, France and other EU countries have set a threshold before they decide on any future increase in their incorporation rate. Some impor­ter countries (primarily Central European) have lowered their incorporation rate or kept it low to ease their economies as they ride out the recession. Between 2010 and 2011, just a handful of countries decided to increase their biofuel incorporation rates in the fuel total – namely, Finland (4 to 6%), Poland (5.75 to 6.2%), Italy (3.5 to 4%), Spain (5.83 to 6.2%), Bulgaria (3.5% to 5% in volume), the Netherlands (4 to 4.25%) and Denmark (first quota set at 3.5%).

Biodiesel is still the main biofuel in European transport with a 78% share of total consumption, as against 21% for bioethanol. Biogas fuel consumption (0.5%) is still a purely Swedish phenomenon and vegetable oil consumption has reverted to marginal status (0.5%) since Germany started taxing this product.

Sales of E10, a fuel made up of 90% unleaded petrol and 10% bioethanol by volume in some countries are behind the faster growth in bioethanol consumption (6.2% up on 2010) compared to biodiesel (2.4%). The European Commission would like E10 to be the main petrol fuel used in all the Member States by 2013.


Source: http://www.eurobserv-er.org/pdf/baro212.pdf