Classification of renewable sources of electricity in the context of sustainable development of the new EU member states

Abstract

Climate change and awareness of the need to care for the environment have resulted in a global increase in the interest in renewable energy sources. The European Union (EU) is active in this respect and requires Member States to fulfill specific plans in the transformation of their energy systems. We employed hierarchical cluster analysis in an attempt to distinguish those countries among the new EU Member States that increased their electrical capacity from renewable energy sources to the greatest extent while paying attention to their energy intensity. The analyses were conducted in two scenarios for both 2004 and 2016. The first scenario assumed an analysis of all known renewable energy sources, whereas in the second scenario, only renewable energy sources from wind and solar power plants were included. The division of analyses into these two variants showed the importance of the differences in the energy assessment of individual countries, depending on classification of renewable energy sources. We identified groups of countries where electrical capacity from renewable energy sources increased the most. Conducting analyses using two variants allowed distinguishing countries that based most of their renewable energy on modern renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power plants. The inclusion of gross domestic product in the analyses allowed us to identify countries with the worst energy efficiency value.