"הפחתה חזקה" בשימוש בפחם

Electricity production was obtained through a mixture of less polluting energy products and the strong reduction in the use of coal stands out.

"In 2020, the year in which the Covid-19 pandemic began, net domestic energy use decreased by 8.7%, a more intense variation than the 8.3% reduction in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in real terms. The energy intensity of the economy (ratio between internal energy use and GDP) decreased by 0.4% (in 2019 it had decreased by 3.1%), recording the lowest value in the series.

However, in a year strongly marked by the pandemic - and the associated restrictions - the consumption of energy products by families fell by 0.5%, "a less intense reduction than that seen in private consumption as a whole (-7.1%), contributing to an increase of 7.0% in the energy intensity of private consumption and interrupting the downward trend that has taken place since 2015".

INE explains that electricity production was "obtained through a 'mix' of less polluting energy products, with a strong reduction in the use of coal (-55.1%) and increases in natural gas (+1.1 %) and, above all, renewables (+9.2%) which reached the maximum in the series since 2000, corresponding to 47% of total electricity production".

"In 2019 (the last year with information available for the EU), Portugal was the Member State with the third lowest energy intensity in the economy, improving, compared to 2018, by two positions compared to other Member States", concludes INE.