Finland's electricity production with renewable energy sources grew by 15 percent in 2008, said Statistics Finland on Wednesday.

Finland's total electricity consumption, consisting of domestic production and imported electricity, amounted to 87.2 terawatt hours (TWh). The volume of electricity produced in Finland amounted to 74.5 TWh last year, of which 36 percent was produced with renewable energy sources, 30 percent with nuclear power and 27 percent with fossil fuels.

The increased proportion of renewable energy sources in Finland's electricity production can be attributed to the fact that hydropower kept growing and the use of wood fuels turned upward.

As the water conditions were favorable in 2008 in Nordic countries, Finland's domestic production of hydropower grew by 21 percent, accounting for 60 percent in the total production of renewable electricity.

By contrast, Finland's production of electricity with coal diminished by 37 percent, and that produced with peat by 30 percent.

Finland is one of the leading users of renewable energy sources in the world. The Finnish government just set a new target in October, according to which renewable energy should provide 60 percent of the country's total energy consumption by 2050.

(Xinhua News Agency October 22, 2009)