Statistical analysis of renewable energy indicators in the European Union

B.Sc. Maged Ahmed Elhanafy Mohamed Elhanafy

Master's thesis

Abstract:

Renewable energy has become an essential topic in the energy sector in recent years due to its potential to reduce carbon emissions and provide sustainable energy sources. Many countries worldwide strive to increase their renewable energy production to achieve climate change targets and contribute to the green economy. The European Union has taken new measures toward energy consumption. The main aim of the thesis is to assess the development of the EU's production and consumption of renewable energy through statistical analysis of their key indicators. The practical part was based on collection of data from the EUROSTAT databases. The total number of indicators used in our study is 14 variables which are categorized into three categories; indicators related to production (5), indicators related to consumption (5) and indicators related to economy (4). The data underwent multivariate statistical models, including exploratory data analysis in the first stage, principal component analysis (PCA) in the second stage and cluster analysis in the last stage. The exploratory data analysis showed the contribution of each country in individual indicators and visualized the countries in a sorted view. The principal component analysis avoided the dataset with high variability and reduced the indicator to ten components. Those ten components were utilized for cluster analysis which classified all 27 EU states into 8 clusters. Germany is the main contributor in renewable energy production with big investment followed by France. Sweden and Finland showed the best practice in utilizing energy produced in different sectors of industry and life. Luxembourg shows the least improvement toward a complete rely on the renewable energy. In conclusion, all analysis done through different stages showed a high degree of shifting from finite sources of energy, such as fossil fuels and oil to more renewable sources as wind and solar power. Therefore, most EU countries are performing well in the regard of clean and affordable energy sectors which is crucial for the current environmental issues that the whole world is facing as global warming.

Keywords

Renewable energy, production, consumption, economy, European Union, multivariate statistical analysis, Principal component analysis, Cluster Analysis, Data visualization, Exploratory data analysis, Data standardization

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 1. 4. 2024

Thesis defence

• Supervisor: Ing. Tomáš Hlavsa, Ph.D.
• Reader: Michal Kadlec, externi

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Faculty of Economics and Management

Master programme:
Informatics