I LOVE energy flow graphs

I just discovered a new treasure trove of graphs.

After admiring the IEA and Lawrence Livermore Labs energy flow graphs for years it suddenly dawned to me that maybe we have our own graphs here in Europe.

And we do!

A quick google search brought me EU's energy flow graphs that are available for each and every EU country, going all the way back to 1990.

In the spirit of COP28 I decided to compare how the energy flow graph has changed for Finland. As starting point I chose 1990 and as the end point the latest available, 2021. The unit EU uses in the graphs is KTOE (kiloton of oil equivalent).

My short observations what has happened over 21 years:

- Energy consumption has gone up by 16%. --> Lots of work for energy efficiency I spy here 🤓 
- Imports have stayed about the same (increase of 3,6%).
- Primary generation (this is due to growth in renewables) has gone up a lot, 58%. 👍
- Exports of oil and petroleum products have gone up by over 4-fold. --> what? 🤔 

So one can conclude that without the increase in renewables, Finland would have needed to import substantially more. We have been able to cover the growth with domestic renewable primary generation.

The Finnish population has grown by 0.5M people during the timeperiod, i.e. 10% growth. So the energy footprint per person has grown over the past 21 years quite substantially. 😱 

But what I really find puzzling is the mega-growth in export of oil & petroleum products? Is this all due to Neste (stock exchange listed Finnish refiner) or what is going on there? Neste used to refine oil back in the 90s also so that cannot explain it either. And as Neste has specialised in biobased petroleum products, is this a classification "error"?