The EU has set a target of 20% of all energy in Europe to come from renewable sources by 2020, and although some countries are doing better than others in meeting this goal. Renewable energy is definitely high on the agenda for all governments and will become progressively more prominent as energy concerns increase. Here are some interesting facts you need to know about renewable energy.

There are four sources which make up renewable energy, sun, wind, sea and earth. These all help pave the way to a more sustainable way of living. Solar power from the sun, energy from the wind, hydropower from waves and geothermal heat from the ground are all playing an extremely important role in our energy mix, helping reduce the need to use fossil fuels and lowering the emissions that are being generated into the atmosphere.

1. Although there is a lot of technology surrounding renewable energy, it's not a new invention. In 200 BC, people in China would use windmills to pump water and grind grain. Romans were the first to use geothermal energy to heat their houses.
2. Despite our current efforts on using renewable sources, we aren't quite there yet. Scientists believe that if we had renewable energy locked down, all the sunlight that falls on the planet in just one hour could power the world's energy demands for an entire year.
3. A reoccurring concern about solar power is that it only provides energy when the sun is shining, but new developments mean that power from the sun's rays can now be stored in a special salt and used at night. A power plant in Spain soaks up the sun during the day and by night pumps out seven hours of power to the surrounding areas.
4. The first ever commercial offshore wind turbine was made by Siemens 30 years ago. Its blades were five metres long and it produced just 30 kilowatts of power. The company's most recent model has blades 75 metres long and produces six megawatts (25,000 times more) enough to power 6,000 homes.
5. Due to the ever expanding world of technology and with the internet taking the limelight, more and more energy is needed to power data centres to feed our online habit. Companies such as Google, Apple and Facebook are helping to meet this demand by funding and developing massive solar farms, producing millions of clean kilowatts every year.
6. A world record was set in 1990 when a solar powered aeroplane flew across the United States in stages, using no fuel at all.
7. Albert Einstein is obviously known for his work on relativity and gravity but in 1921 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the photoelectric effect, which is what we have to thank for to have solar panels today.
8. The renewable energy industry was worth $257 billion (£163 billion) in global investments in 2011, 17% higher than it was in 2010.
9. The US is responsible for using the most renewable energy (24.7% of the world total) but it's actually smaller countries that top the charts for clean living. The Itaipu in Paraguay, provides 90% of the country's electricity (displacing 67.5 million tonnes of co2 every year), while 100% of Iceland's energy is supplied by geothermal and hydropower sources. The country has so much geothermal capacity that there are discussions about the feasibility of building an interconnector in the UK grid.
10. The WWF says that the whole world could get all the power it needs from renewable resources by 2020, ending our reliance on fossil fuels and other depleting resources, but only if the right political, financial and societal decisions are made.

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