Europe pays more attention to renewable energy sources, but different countries use different technologies. Sweden bases its renewable energy mix mainly on biomass, hydropower, and wind energy, Finland also intensively uses biomass, and in Denmark, besides biomass, wind energy plays an important role. However, we are used to the fact that Scandinavian countries lead in the use of renewable energy sources in various economic sectors.
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Meanwhile, Lithuania stands out among EU countries in the use of renewable energy sources for heating and cooling. According to Eurostat data, in 2024, the share of renewable energy sources in energy used for heating and cooling in Lithuania reached 52.1%. This is one of the highest indicators in the entire European Union. For comparison, this indicator was 67.8% in Sweden, 62.6% in Finland. The EU average was 26.7%, and Poland’s indicator did not reach this level. In 2023, the share of renewable energy in Poland’s heating and cooling sector was 20.2%, and in 2024 – only about 21%.
Lithuania focuses mainly on biomass use in heat production
These numbers show that Poland is still significantly behind Lithuania. The share of renewable energy sources in Lithuania’s heating and cooling sector is more than twice as high as in Poland.
However, this does not mean that Lithuanians have massively installed one specific type of heating equipment in their homes. Such a high indicator is primarily due to the changed centralized heating system in Lithuania in recent years.
Lithuania has invested heavily in biomass, especially in centralized heat supply systems. According to the International Energy Agency, as early as 2021, biomass accounted for about 80% of centrally supplied heat production. This was part of a broader transformation that reduced gas use and increased the importance of local renewable energy sources.
Thus, the heating sector is one of the most important elements of Lithuania’s energy transformation. For many years, the country was highly dependent on fossil fuels, especially gas. Over time, heat supply companies began to replace it with biomass. As a result, the share of renewable energy sources in Lithuania’s centralized heat supply system increased from 6% in 2000 to almost 80% in 2024.
Poland also uses biomass. Why is the difference so big?
At first glance, this may seem surprising, as biomass is also the most important renewable energy source used for heat production in Poland. However, this does not mean that Poland has completely ignored this trend.
The difference is primarily due to the scale of renewable energy use across the entire heating system and the pace at which Lithuania has abandoned fossil fuels.
For many years, Lithuania was very dependent on imported gas, and Russia’s aggression against Ukraine further accelerated this process. The country rapidly increased the use of local biomass for heating, allowing centralized heat supply systems to reduce gas consumption without immediately having to replace the entire infrastructure.
This is especially important because centralized heat supply networks in Lithuania play a significant role in heating residential buildings – about 75% of urban residential buildings are connected to them.
The situation in Poland is more complicated. The country’s centralized heat supply system was largely based on coal (according to the Polish Energy Regulatory Office, in 2025 coal accounted for 52.8% of the fuel used in Poland’s centralized heat supply sector – editor’s note). It cannot simply be replaced by biomass across the sector without first modernizing heat production facilities and adapting them to new technologies.
The transformation of Poland’s highly fragmented heat supply system requires not only changing the fuel used but also investing billions in new heat sources, networks, and other infrastructure.
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