The data is included in a country-by-country report published by the European Commission on the occasion of the two-year anniversary of REPowerEU, created for the EU to reduce its dependence on Russian fossil fuels, in which Brussels indicates that between August 2022 and January 2024, Portugal recorded a 23% decrease in gas consumption.

Portugal was the ninth of the 27 EU Member States with the largest decrease, behind countries such as Denmark (-40%), Finland (-39%), Latvia (-30%), Sweden (-29%), Lithuania (-29%), Estonia (-28%), the Netherlands (-27%) and Luxembourg (-26%), percentages above the voluntary reduction target for natural gas consumption at European level of around 15%.

"Portugal has strengthened the security of its gas supply, while the increase in renewable energy in the energy mix has limited its dependence on energy imports," says the Community executive.

Data from Brussels indicates that Portugal has reduced its energy dependence on third countries from 70% in 2013 to 59% in 2021.

Even so, in 2022, the weight of fossil fuels in the Portuguese energy mix was still 69%.

The share of these fuels in electricity production, on the other hand, decreased from 40% in 2022 to 27% in 2023.

In 2023, according to the European Commission, Portugal installed around 1.3 gigawatts of renewable electricity capacity, bringing the total to 18.4 gigawatts, which contrasts with 15.1 gigawatts in 2021.

Also last year, the annual growth rate of installed renewable energy capacity increased to 7.6% compared to 6.1% in 2021.

However, in the document, Brussels warns that "Portugal remains highly dependent on third countries for clean energy technologies, especially solar module components".

"There have been positive developments in the manufacture of electrolysers and Portugal has a growing presence in the wind supply chain. It also has great potential for battery manufacturing, [but] imports most of its photovoltaic solar modules from China and has limited manufacturing capabilities throughout the photovoltaic supply chain," it adds.

Last Friday, the Community executive marked the second anniversary of the REPowerEU energy program, highlighting the efforts to "completely eliminate" Russian imports.

In view of the difficulties and disruptions in the world energy market caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the European Commission launched the REPowerEU energy plan in May 2022, aiming to save energy, produce clean energy and diversify energy supply.

The EU has been reducing its imports of Russian gas (which arrives by pipeline), going from a dependence of 40% in 2021 to 8% in 2023.

In view of this plan, the 27 Member States have also already saved 20% of their energy consumption, introduced a price cap on gas and on oil at world level and doubled the additional deployment of renewable energies.

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