Jan 4, 2007, 15:17 GMT
Berlin - Solar energy, wind power and other renewable energy sources enjoyed record popularity in Germany last year, the Federation of Renewable Energy (BEE) said Thursday.
The share of alternative energies in national energy consumption increase to 7.7 per cent in 2006 from 6.8 per cent the previous year, the BEE said in its annual review.
Hefty government subsides have turned Germany into a world leader in the use of alternative sources such as wind power, hydropower, solar energy, bio energy and geothermal energy.
The biggest increase was in the use of solar energy (30 per cent), followed by bio energy (20 per cent) and wind power (10 per cent), the BEE said.
The energy supply derived from infinitely available sources grew to more than 200 billion kilowatt hours, enough to meet the electricity, heat and fuel needs of more than 10 million households.
Renewable energy accounted for 11.6 per cent of electricity consumption, 5.4 per cent of fuel consumption and 6.2 per cent of heating usage, the BEE said.
BEE president Johannes Lackmann urged the government to do more to make the country less dependent on fossil fuels and ease the phasing out of atomic energy by 2021.
'Nowhere else could harmful emissions of carbon dioxide be reduced so quickly and so rapidly as in the heating sector,' Lackmann said.
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