14/09/2020 (Agence Europe) – In 2018, 8.9% of the total gross electricity produced in the European Union was based on lignite, almost equal to the amount of electricity produced from other bituminous coals (9.3%) and more than double that produced by photovoltaic solar energy (3.8%), according to the latest data from Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office, published on Monday 14 September. According to this data, nine Member States mine lignite for the production of electricity and heat and six of them together accounted for 96% of total EU production in 2018: Germany (45%), Poland (16%), the Czech Republic (11%), Greece (10%), Bulgaria (8%) and Romania (6%). In addition, nuclear heat and natural gas were the most used sources of electricity generation in the EU, with a share in total generation of 25.3% and 19% respectively. See Eurostat data: https://bit.ly/2DZ8WDQ (DG)