South Korea ranked last among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in the use of renewable energy to power its economy in 2014, a report by an international energy agency showed Wednesday.

Asia's fourth-largest economy got just 1.1 percent of its energy from renewable sources like solar, wind, geothermal, tidal and hydropower generation, according to the report by the International Energy Agency.

The number placed the country last among the 34 developed market economies with high income, and it is way below the OECD average of 9.2 percent.

Energy derived from eco-friendly and sustainable sources remained unchanged for 25 years. South Korea's reliance on green energy first reached 1.1 percent in 1990.

South Korea's number was noticeably lower than Luxembourg that ranked 33rd on the list at 4.4 percent. Other countries that generally did not use renewable energy were the Netherlands and Japan. The reliance on green energy by these two countries stood at 4.6 percent and 4.9 percent, respectively.

Iceland ranked at the top with renewable energy accounting for
89.3 percent of the total, followed by Norway at 43.5 percent and New Zealand at 39.1 percent.

Among major industrialized countries, Germany ranked No. 1 with renewable energy meeting 11.1 percent of its needs, with the United States standing at 6.5 percent.

The latest findings showed that in the past quarter century, use of renewable energy among the OECD has been rising steadily from 5.9 percent in 1990.

South Korea's low ranking comes at a time when countries around the world are pledging to cut back on the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere by increasing reliance on clean renewable energy sources.

"Compared to other countries whose energy requirements have tapered off, the pace of economic growth is causing greater demand for power that is affecting the country's reliance on green energy sources," said Lee Sang-hoon, head of the Green Energy Strategy Institute.

He pointed out that while South Korea's clean energy use remained stagnant in percentage terms, real output from solar, wind and other sustainable sources has been growing.

He, however, said government priorities centered on generating cheap power have caused the country to become reliant on nuclear power and fossil fuel.

The IEA said in terms of South Korea's total primary energy supply, the country got 35.6 percent of its energy from crude oil, followed by 30.5 percent from coal. Numbers for natural gas and nuclear power stood at 16.3 percent and 15.4 percent, respectively. (Yonhap)