Lithuania profile

Overview

In 2018, the final energy consumption in Lithuania was about 5.5 Mtoe. It has been increasing during the period 2000-2018 by 2% per year. Transport, the largest consuming sector, recorded 11 percentage points increase in its share in total final energy consumption since 2000 – from 26.5% to 37.3% in 2018. Over the same period, the residential sector decreased by 10 percentage points (from 38.0% to 28.3%), services decreased by 0.4 percentage points – to 12.3%, while industry kept a steady share around 20%. The building sector, comprising residential and services sectors, accounted for 40.6% of final energy consumption in 2018.

Energy efficiency for final consumers, as measured by ODEX, improved by an average of 2.3% per year from 2000 to 2018 or 35% over the period. The largest gains of energy efficiency progress were in the industry (5.6 % per year). In the transport sector, energy efficiency improvements have been improving at the steady pace of 1.7 % per year. In the residential sector, due to old building renovation process, energy efficiency improvements were about 1.4 % per year. In the service sector, the energy efficiency improvements have been steady (0.6 % per year).

Lithuania has adopted its Third National Energy Efficiency Action Plan (NEEAP), which sets an indicative national energy efficiency target of 740 ktoe of final energy for 2020. The energy saving measures are expected to save 13.75 TWh by the end of 2020.  The National Energy Independence Strategy (NEIS) is the leading energy policy document, which sets the main strategical goals for Lithuanian energy sector development and their implementation directions up to 2050. In the area of energy efficiency, the NEIS and following energy policy aims at increasing energy consumption efficiency by 1.5% per year till 2020 and by 1.3% per year between 2020 and 2030. The NEIS determines that the highest energy consumption efficiency will be achieved in transport sector due to the upgrade of car fleet in the country, the shift towards use of modern and environmental-friendly public transport, the promotion of investment into the environmental-friendly transport. Potential energy savings are estimated at 300 ktoe in transport by 2020. The energy saving potential is high in the building sector. Energy efficiency in public and households’ buildings will be increased by modernizing and renovating buildings. Every year, 220 ktoe of energy will be saved due to a more efficient use of heat and 70 ktoe will be saved through the green public procurements and the use of energy efficiently consuming appliances. Lithuania prepared the National Energy and Climate Action Plan (NECAP). Within the Dimension of Energy Consumption it assumes to implement existing and planned policy measures which will allow achieving energy savings of 22.16 TWh and 21,78 TWh, respectively, during 2021-2030.

Buildings

In 2018, space heating accounted for 72% of the households consumption, electrical appliances for 13.8%, water heating for 8.3% and cooking for 6.2%. The space heating consumption per m2 of households decreased by 20% over the period and amounted to 11.3 koe/m2 in 2018. Electricity consumption for electrical appliances per dwelling has increased from 0.09 toe/dw in 2000 to 0.15 toe/dw in 2018. Cooking has decreased by around 35% and accounted 0.07 toe/dw in 2018. Water heating consumption remained almost stable and accounted 0.09 toe/dw in 2018.  

In 2018, the total residential energy consumption was about 1.48 Mtoe. The residents choice to have larger homes, the increased number of dwellings, the climate and some other reasons explained the increasing energy consumption in residential dwellings, by 0.26 Mtoe, 0.11 Mtoe, 0.03 Mtoe and 0.11 Mtoe respectively. These increases were not fully compensated by technical energy savings (0.4 Mtoe). Therefore, the total residential energy consumption was by 8.0% higher in 2018 than in 2000.

The electricity consumption per employee has been increasing by 2.4%/year since 2000 due to the growing number of new electrical appliances, such as IT devices, telecommunication devices as well as air conditioning. Such trend is not only observed in Lithuania, but in almost all EU countries. The total energy consumption per employee has been increasing by 0.8%/year over the same period.

During 2005-2013, a building standard (STR 2.05.01:2005 “Thermal Technique of Envelopes of the Buildings”) was applied in Lithuania. It set higher normative requirements for heat losses of the buildings compared to the former standard STR 2.05.01:1999. Implementation of the building standard allowed decreasing energy consumption in the new constructed buildings by 15 – 20% in average. Between 2005 and 2013, 526.6 GWh of energy was saved. With the aim to further increase energy efficiency, Lithuania implements programmes and measures in building sector.  In the framework of Programme for Renovation of Multifamily Buildings, soft loans are provided to households based on updated financing model, while differentiated subsidy of 15-30% is given to households living in houses of one /two dwellings and in multifamily houses within the measure "Energy Efficiency Improvement in Household Sector" of Special Programme for Climate Change. Financial resources from the State, municipal budgets and EU Structural Funds are used to upgrade public buildings. It is expected that renovation of multifamily buildings will result in 1000 GWh of energy savings per annum in 2020 and modernization of public buildings will allow to save 250 GWh in 2020. In 2017, energy savings from the Programme for Renovation of Multifamily Buildings were 498.88 GWh (50% of the expected value in 2020) and those from the measure "Energy Efficiency Improvement in Household Sector" of Special Programme for Climate Change were 4.66 GWh, while energy savings from Programme for Improving Energy Efficiency in Public Buildings were unknown. However, measures for energy efficiency improvement in specific public buildings, including high schools, educational institutions, etc., allowed saving of 101.77 GWh of energy in 2017.

Transport

In 2018, road transport accounted of 96.6% of the sector’s energy consumption. From 2000 to 2018 the share of cars in transport energy consumption has decreased from 59.7% to 58.4% in 2018. Trucks and light vehicles consumption has increased from 32.5% to 38.1%. The remaining consumption is split between rail (3.1%), inland water (0.2%) and motorcycles (0.1%).

The split of traffic between modes remains almost stable since 2000. Cars represented 90.1% of passenger traffic in 2018, versus 8.5% for bus and 1.4% for rail.

The goods traffic (measured in tonne-kilometre) was 3.6 times higher in 2018 than in 2000, mostly due to road (5.6 times higher) and rail (1.8 times higher). In 2018, road traffic accounted for 72.1% and rail traffic 27.9% in freight transportation.

The final energy consumption in transport sector was 1.03 Mtoe higher in 2018 than in 2000. The growth in activity, the split in modal shift and other effects pushed up transport consumption (by 0.84 Mtoe, 0.17 Mtoe and 0.43 Mtoe respectively). This significant increase of energy consumption was not counterbalanced by energy savings (0.42 Mtoe).

In transport sector, measures are focused on development of road infrastructure, upgrading of public transport fleets and informational/educational purposes like ecological driving or a day without car. EU Structural funds, State budget funds and financial resources from Special Programme for Climate Change are used. In addition, increased value added tax is applied to fuels and excise tax on some types of fuels, including gasoline, LPG and diesel. The increase in taxes permitted to save 609.15 GWh in 2017, in comparison to 4.94 GWh thanks to the upgrade of public transport.

Industry

The final energy consumption of industry increased by 41.0% between 2000 and 2018. The most important energy consumer is the chemical industry: its share increased significantly, from 20.4% in 2000 to 37.2% in 2018. The share of the other energy-intensive branches (non-metallic minerals, pulp and paper) decreased in comparison to 2000.

In 2018, the industry sector represented 20% of the final energy consumption in Lithuania. The final energy consumption in industry was 0.31 Mtoe higher in 2018 than in 2000. Industry economic growth and structural changes pushed up the energy consumption (by 1.31 Mtoe and 0.32 Mtoe respectively). These effects were not fully offset by energy savings (1.13 Mtoe) and by other effects (0.18 Mtoe). 

The Lithuanian policy in terms of energy efficiency in the industrial sector focuses on financial incentive measures for energy efficiency investment, CHP investment, investments in clean fuels and capacities (renewables and waste). Investment subsidies and partial compensation of interest for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects are provided through EU Structural Funds, Lithuanian Environment Investment Fund and Special Programme for Climate Change. The financial resources are oriented towards improvement of energy production efficiency by providing support for more efficient cogeneration and heat supply systems.