| Abstract [eng] |
This thesis explores the reasons behind different outcomes of renewable energy development in the European Union from 2008 to 2021. Even though EU countries share common climate and renewable energy objectives, regulation, support mechanisms and a common energy market, renewable energy development outcomes between some of these countries varied more than threefold during this period. Therefore, the aim of this paper was assess the impact of economic and political factors on the actual and relative development of renewable energy in the European Union from 2008 to 2021. The main renewable energy development causal mechanisms and drivers were identified and conceptualized based on existing literature. The major explanations for renewable energy development used in this paper were economic substitution expressed by increasing fossil fuel prices (H1) and declining long-term costs of different renewable energy generation technologies (H2), governmental support for renewable energy (H3), protectionist policies towards conventional energy expressed by the size of conventional fossil or nuclear energy (H4) as well as state support for conventional energy (H5), energy insecurity expressed by dependence on energy imports (H6). In this paper two dependent variables were used to measure the development of renewable energy: 1) the relative development of renewable energy, measured by the share of electricity generated from renewable energy sources in total electricity consumption, and 2) the actual development of renewable energy, measured by the installed renewable energy capacity per capita. While the second dependent variable shows factual increases in the installed capacity of renewable energy, the first dependent variable reflects not only that, but also the overall transformation of the energy sectors in the European Union. Additionally, thirteen independent variables were used in the empirical assessment, including oil and natural gas annual prices, levelized costs of wind and solar energy, shares of fossil fuel and nuclear energy in the final energy consumption, state support to renewable, fossil fuel and nuclear energy, state dependency for energy imports, final energy consumption, GDP and greenhouse gas emissions per capita. The empirical assessment was carried out by compiling the latest data dataset from different sources and quantitatively modelling a fixed-effects linear regression model, as well as a pooled OLS linear regressions model, which assessed the relationships between the independent variables and the actual and relative development results of renewable energy. According to the results of the model, H1 and H6 were rejected, while H2, H3 and H5 were confirmed and H4 confirmed in part. The regression modelling showed that the national policies of the EU Member States are the most important factors determining both the actual and the relative performance of renewable energy development. Public policies and state support can either encourage the development of renewable energy through subsidies, research and development funding or by other forms of support, or severely constrain it by adopting protectionist policies towards existing conventional energy industries. In this context, market conditions, at least during the period from 2008 to 2021, are seen as having negligible impact. This is also an important factor when thinking about energy security, as the paper discovers that import dependence is negatively correlated with the performance of renewable energy development, and it is therefore state interventions that can ensure that not only climate neutrality objectives are met, but also energy security objectives. |
