The Consumption of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) by the European Union Households between 2004 and 2019

Renewable Energy Consumption-Growth Nexus in European Countries: A Sectoral Approach

The renewable energy consumption plays a significant role in achieving sustainable development, but a sectoral approach is necessary to design the better recommendations for each sector. In this context, the main objective of this paper is to assess the impact of the use of this type of energy on economic growth in 23 European Union (EU) member states in the period 1990-2020. Besides overall renewable energy consumption, different utilisations of this energy are considered: in industry, transport, in commercial and public services, and for residential purposes. The methodological background is built around panel data models that start from a Cobb-Douglas function. The renewable energy consumption is considered an important factor that should generate economic growth. The panel data approach based on causality analysis and Augmented Mean Group and Common Correlated Effects Mean Group estimators suggests that renewable energy use in industry does not determine economic growth, but economic development is a cause for more utilisation of this energy in industry. In addition, more renewable energy consumption in transport enhances economic growth. A high level of economic development can promote the consumption of renewable energies in industrial sectors. In this way, industrial companies can allocate more financial funds to research in the field of renewable energies and can afford to adopt renewable energy sources. Investment in biofuels can contribute to achieving sustainable transport in the EU.

The Development of Renewable Energy Sources in the European Union in the Light of the European Green Deal

Climate and energy policies are the key areas of the European Union’s development aspirations in the international arena. The European Green Deal sets ambitious new goals in this respect, emphasizing clean energy. The development of the energy sector, relying chiefly on renewable sources, is one of the conditions for the EU to transition to energies that do not produce waste that pollutes or is otherwise harmful to the Earth and human health. This paper assesses the development of renewable sources of energy in the EU and identifies challenges to the realization of the EU’s energy priorities. An analysis of renewable sources of energy in the EU in 2012 and 2020 is the prime method. The generation of primary energy from renewable sources, the share of energy from renewable sources in the final energy consumption, the structure of energy generation from renewable sources, and the share of energy from renewable sources in the energy used by the transport sector are discussed. Secondary data are employed, made available by Eurostat and Statistics Poland. To reach the objective of the study, Z. Hellwig’s taxonomic method is applied to assess the development of renewable energy sources (RES). Cluster analysis (Ward’s agglomerative clustering method) is additionally used for separation of objects and member states that are similar with regard to the phenomenon reviewed. Particular attention is paid to the challenges that societies and economies face in view of the assumptions of the EU’s new Green Deal, which envisages a balancing of CO2 emissions and absorption. This analysis discovers varied progress on the development of RES in the member states, posing a threat to the European community’s aspirations.

Transformation of Energy Markets: Description, Modeling of Functioning Mechanisms and Determining Development Trends

One of the key contemporary economic and social issues today is the global energy transition [...]

Economic Conditions of Using Biodegradable Waste for Biogas Production, Using the Example of Poland and Germany

Biogas production is a process with great potential. It uses the biodegradable raw materials of animal, vegetable and municipal waste. The amount of municipal as well as agricultural waste is increasing every year. This waste is an unmanaged and nuisance waste, and using it in biogas plants reduces the amount of waste. Biogas production is part of the EU’s policy to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and use energy from renewable sources (diversification of energy sources). Its importance is certain to increase in the future as energy demand increases. This article deals with the economical use of biodegradable waste for biogas production in Poland and Germany. Both countries have a similar agricultural and municipal waste structure. An agricultural biogas plant is one way of obtaining energy based on renewable energy sources (RES). Energy production from agricultural biogas will allow Poland to meet the 32% obligation imposed by the EU and Germany to continue to be the market leader in biogas plants. The biogas market in Poland is growing, while in Germany, there is a decline in biogas installations. The article indicates what changes need to take place in agriculture and the use of municipal waste in these countries to sustain the development of biogas plants. Both countries should maintain animal husbandry to ensure continuous access to substrate and use waste for production rather than growing maize or other mixtures only for biogas plants. Due to the high price of chemical fertilisers, pulp from biogas plants should be an alternative to chemical fertilisers in both countries, which will contribute to greener crops. The governments of both countries should support such measures.

Renewable and Sustainable Energy: Current State and Prospects

The last two decades of the twentieth century represented a period of above-average, systematic growth of formal and informal interdependencies between economies of different countries and between world markets [...]

Analyzing Wind Energy Potential Using Efficient Global Optimization: A Case Study for the City Gdańsk in Poland

Wind energy (WE), which is one of the renewable energy (RE) sources for generating electricity, has been making a significant contribution to obtaining clean and green energy in recent years. Fitting an appropriate statistical distribution to the wind speed (WS) data is crucial in analyzing and estimating WE potential. Once the best suitable statistical distribution for WS data is determined, WE potential and potential yield could be estimated with high accuracy. The main objective of this paper is to propose a novel approach for calculating wind energy potential. For this purpose, the Efficient Global Optimization (EGO) technique was proposed for fitting a statistical distribution to WS data and the performance of the technique was compared with genetic algorithm (GA), simulated annealing (SA), and differential evolution (DE). Performance metrics showed that EGO is providing better estimations compared with GA, SA, and DE. Based on Weibull parameters obtained by using EGO, potential WE and potential annual revenue were estimated for Gdańsk, which is the capital of Pomerania Voivodeship in Poland, in the case of having city-type wind turbines in the city center. Estimations for Gdańsk showed that city-type wind turbines might be helpful for producing electricity from WE in the city without being limited by constraints such as having a long distance between wind turbines and buildings. If such wind turbines were erected on the roofs of residential buildings, malls, or office buildings, there is a possibility that part of the electric energy needed for such buildings could be generated using WE. However, this topic should be further investigated from technical and financial perspectives.

How to Meet the Green Deal Objectives—Is It Possible to Obtain 100% RES at the Regional Level in the EU?

The subject matter discussed in the article concerns the problem of the energy transformation of the European Union (EU) countries. In the case of the EU, the energy transformation has specific characteristics due to formal legal and institutional provisions. This means that the member states are obliged to implement the adopted Community Energy Strategy, which was defined under the European Green Deal. According to the EU policy, all member states are to have climate-neutral and zero-gas-emission economies by 2050. The energy transformation is to be largely based on the diversification of the energy sources used, with a dominance of renewable energy sources (RES). The article presents a research problem, where the question was asked whether achieving climate-neutral energy independence based solely on RES is possible at the regional level. It seems that the positive answer is an important argument in the discussion about the possibility of all member states achieving the goals set under the European Green Deal. Additionally, stating the possibility of energy independence from RES for a selected region is an important argument to promote just and bottom-up initiatives in order to carry out the energy transformation more effectively. The assessment of the energy potential from renewable sources at the regional level was carried out on the example of a selected NUTS 2 region, the Greater Poland Voivodeship in Poland. The main objective of the study is to analyze the possibility of obtaining independence from RES by the selected Greater Poland Voivodeship. The implementation of the objective consists of determining the energy potential from RES in the Voivodeship under study on the basis of the methods of a geographic information system (GIS). GIS methods were selected due to the fact that they allow for the spatial positioning of point, line, and surface structures in relation to the potential of RES, thus ensuring high accuracy of the obtained estimates. The analysis carried out in the study shows that the technical potential of RES in the Greater Poland Voivodeship is higher than the current electricity and heat usage. This means that by focusing solely on RES in the region, the Greater Poland Voivodeship can fully meet the energy demand thanks to its green resources. It should be emphasized that the Greater Poland Voivodeship is one of the coal-dependent regions in Poland that has already prepared a structured plan of just transformation. A locally and bottom-up prepared strategy assumes the conversion of the region from a “Coal Energy Region” into a “Green Energy Valley” in which economic development will be strictly connected to RES energy independence.

Assessment of the Feasibility of Energy Transformation Processes in European Union Member States

The energy transition is now treated in most countries as a necessary condition for their long-term development. The process of energy transformation assumes the simultaneous implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, which are a major challenge for modern economies and introduce significant restrictions in their functioning. Our study aims to group EU member states according to their ability to achieve energy transition over time. The novelty of our approach is the assessment of energy transformation in the European Union through two aspects. The first one, “smart and efficient energy systems”, assess the current, widely understood energy consumption in economy, and the second one, “macroeconomic heterogeneity”, refers to the economic potential of a country. In our analysis, we included indicators from the 7th, 8th, 10th, 11th, and 12th Sustainable Development Goals. Using taxonomic methods, we created clusters of countries according to the emissivity of their economies and the socio-economic potential for the energy transition. The analysis results revealed that countries vary more due to their emissivity than economic potential.

Renewable Energy in the Pomerania Voivodeship—Institutional, Economic, Environmental and Physical Aspects in Light of EU Energy Transformation

In the era of globalization and rapid economic growth, affecting most world economies, increased production and consumption are leading to higher levels of energy production and consumption. The growing demand for energy means that energy resources from conventional sources are not sufficient; moreover, its production generates high costs and contributes to the emission of greenhouse gases and waste. In view of the above, many countries have opted to implement an energy transformation. The energy transition allows the transition from an energy system based on conventional fuels to an energy system based mainly on renewable energy (RE) and low-emission sources. In the EU, the development of a “green economy” has become a strategic goal in the fight against climate change. The development of RE offers the possibility to improve the energy security of a given country and the entire EU. New, innovative technologies of RE also increase the attractiveness and competitiveness of the economies of the Member States. In line with the EU strategy, the activities carried out aim to achieve a situation in which, in 2050, the activities of economies will not endanger the environment. The main purpose of this article was the assessment of the RE sector in the Pomerania region in the context of energy transformation. To achieve this goal, PEST analysis regarding the functioning of the RE sector in the selected Polish region was used and the potential of the RE sector was determined using GIS tools on the basis of physical conditions. The article presents the research hypothesis that the RE sector within the Pomerania Voivodeship possesses appropriate energy potential, which will allow this Voivodeship to become an energy self-sufficient region based on the use of these energy sources (according to EU strategy). The implementation of the goal set in the article allowed for the verification of the research hypothesis, where the determined energy potential from the RE sector would cover the Voivodeship’s needs due to the use of electricity and heat. The conducted research shows that the RE sector in these regions has high energy potential to meet the criteria outlined in EU legal documents and to implement them successfully within the intended period.

Evaluation of the Level of Electricity Generation from Renewable Energy Sources in European Union Countries

Changes in recent years have resulted in an increase in the ways in which renewable energy is used and shared in total electricity generation. Each type of renewable energy is characterised by its uniqueness of the physical specificity and, therefore, differences in technological solutions. In this study, one of the methods of multidimensional comparative analysis (WAP)—Hellwig’s taxonomic measure of development—was used to assess the level of development of electricity production from renewable sources. Twenty-eight countries were surveyed, including 27 countries of the current European Union and the United Kingdom. Panel models were used to describe the relationship between the share of electricity production from RES in total electricity production and GDP per capita, public spending by countries on energy as a percentage of GDP as well as electricity production from water, wind, solar, and biogas per capita. The presented synthetic measures confirmed the more favourable situation of the rich northern EU countries in the production of electricity from renewable sources (solar, wind, hydro, and bio), at the same time highlighting problems with the greening of electricity production in a large group of the new EU member states. The panel study confirmed the importance of differences in economic potential and wealth between EU countries for the development of the use of RES for electricity production.

Socioemotional Wealth (SEW) of Family Firms and CEO Behavioral Biases in the Implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Agreed upon by the UN member states, Agenda 2030 assumes joint action for long-term sustainable development. These actions are focused on the implementation of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), where actions are assumed to lead to the suppression of negative externalities of human activity. It is stressed that the objectives of sustainable development can only be achieved through deep institutional changes in most dimensions of the economy, including the entrepreneurship dimension. Entrepreneurship plays a pivotal role in the sustainable transformation of the community, as the related activities of companies are the source of the desired structural changes. Entrepreneurial projects make the biggest contribution to the objectives of sustainable development through research and development, investment in new technologies, and innovation. The biggest threat to sustainable entrepreneurship is firms’ aggressive corporate financial strategy, which most often results from CEO overconfidence and aggressive financial behavior. The aim of the article is to indicate differences in corporate financial strategies regarding the status of the company (family or non-family) and CEO characteristics (overconfident or non-overconfident). The fulfilment of this aim by analyzing a selected EU member country (Poland) found more aggressive behavior of overconfident CEOs in non-family firms. It was also found that family firms are a fairly coherent group of companies that implement a more conservative corporate financial strategy regardless of CEO characteristics. We can state that family power can curb CEO overconfidence and its impact on aggressive financial strategy. This means that family firms are much more able to create sustainable entrepreneurship and contribute to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within a market framework.

Between Poverty and Energy Satisfaction in Polish Households Run by People Aged 60 and Older

The household sector contributes significantly to a country’s energy consumption. Energy carrier expenses are the highest expenditures in Polish household budgets. Households run by individuals aged 60 and older are heavily burdened with energy expenditures. The scientific aim of the research is to present and assess housing conditions, with particular emphasis on energy poverty in households run by individuals aged 60 and older. Multivariate statistical analyses were used to conduct the research objectives (cluster methods, variance methods, regression methods). This paper identifies a new index—one that has been applied to the situation in Poland. Households that consist of elderly people are strongly diversified in terms of housing conditions (including energy conditions). There are concerns that some households are not able to access energy services that are required to satisfy basic human needs, particularly individuals with low levels of education, living on social benefits, with low disposable incomes, or living in the countryside. Households represented by men aged 60 and older have better energy supply than households run by women. The older the individual representing the household, the greater the likelihood that his/her energy service needs are not met.