Energy Transition Towards a Greener and More Competitive Economy: The Iberian Case

Abstract

In this paper, we analyze the effects of the energy transition process on economic growth in Spain and Portugal, countries that, adhering to European Union (EU) directives, opted to promote clean energies from the very start. On the one hand, we look at the energy transition laws introduced by the EU and other countries. On the other, we conduct a causal analysis of energy consumption and economic growth to confirm whether the change of energy model has generated positive effects on economic growth. The procedure was as follows. First, we conducted an aggregate causality analysis exploring the relationship between growth and energy consumption. As the results were not significant, we repeated the analysis with different disaggregations of renewable energy sources. With respect to solar thermal energy and economic growth, the main conclusion is that the data appear to show a one-way causal relationship for Portugal and EU-26 (European Union without Portugal and Spain) and a two-way relationship for Spain.

Entrepreneurial Behaviour Identified among SME Members of an International Group with Sustainability-Oriented Strategy

“…The literature on sustainability is growing massively [60][61][62][63][64][65][66]; however, there is not much about the EB of companies with a sustainability-oriented strategy, and even less is available in the case of SMEs. Sustainability literature covers a variety of issues, both at the macroand microeconomic level.…”

“…Notably, most of the titles are related to industries that are directly linked to the eco-environment-such as tourism and hospitality industries [60,61]-or hardpollutants-such as plastics [62], or hard-polluting countries, such as those contributing global CO 2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion [63]. Most notably, sustainability-related literature is focused on strategic issues in Europe and does not often refer to companies, but large majority is related to entire industries or economic sectors [64], such as the renewable energy sector and its role in a more competitive economy [65], renewable energy evolution and forecasting [66], etc.…”

Energy Transition in France

“…Energy transition and carbon neutrality have received a lot of attention in recent years, and an increasing number of articles have recently been published [26][27][28][29][30][31]. A number of them highlight the policies on this crucial topic in different countries (namely, Italy [32,33]; the United kingdom [34]; Spain [35]; Morocco [10]; Germany; China [7,15,36,37]; Portugal [38]; Canada [39]; the United States [14]; India [40]; South Korea [41]; Botswana [42]; South Africa [43]; Mexico [8]; Switzerland [11]; and Russia [12]), regions (i.e., Europe [44], Africa [45], South America [17], and South Asia [46,47]), and a select few compare policies across countries or regions (namely, France and Sweden [48]; Spain and Portugal [49]; Germany and China [50]; China and Africa [51]; two Austrian regions [13]; Global North and Global South [16]; Southeastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) [9]; lower-and middle-income countries [52]; developing countries [53]; Australia; Brazil; Canada; China; Europe; India; Indonesia; Japan; The Republic of Korea; Russia; and the United States [54]).…”

Unveiling endogeneity and temporal dependence in energy prices and demand in Iberian countries: a stochastic hidden Markov model approach

“…In the first half of the twentieth century, the Iberian energy sector, namely the energy sector of Portugal and Spain, was different from the one of other European or OECD countries from the perspective of its higher degree of dependence on external energy. Now Spain and Portugal are the two countries leading the energy transition promoted by electricity generation from renewable energy sources (Perez-Franco et al, 2020). There are several electricity markets among the European countries, one of which is operated by OMIE for the Iberian electricity market, the main responsibility of which is to manage the day-ahead and intraday electricity markets in Spain and Portugal (Canelas et al, 2020).…”

“…In Particular, Portugal committed to have electricity generation from renewable resource accounting for 60% of total production by 2020 (Gil-Alana et al, 2020). In addition, investment in renewable energy will play a positive impact on stabilizing climate, increase employment and economic growth (Pollin et al, 2015), it will also reduce GDP per capita emission as well as diminish the energy dependency (Perez-Franco et al, 2020), which is of particular importance for the Iberian Peninsula. Through the investigation of the relationship between energy price and energy demand under the propose innovative method, we would be able to not only establish a reasonable price mechanism in the spot and futures energy market in Iberian market, but also the price mechanism will provide a guidance and motivation for these two countries to engage in the endeavor in the process of decarbonization in the energy sector by producing energy from coal sources towards sustainable ones such as wind and solar.…”