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Empirical assessment of sustainable energy markets in the EU-28

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Abstract

Sustainable consumption and production policies have been developed by the EU as part of the United Nations 10-year framework programme on sustainable consumption and production. In this context, the study of energy consumption and production patterns might be especially relevant as the importance of energy input. This paper develops the Sustainable Energy Market Aggregated Index in the EU-28 that provides information about the achieved effects of sustainable consumption and production policies on energy efficiency, energy dependence, generation mix based on clean production technologies and competitive market structure. The results suggest that Denmark, Sweden, UK, Italy, the Netherlands have the better scores. Reinforcing measures are proposed for member states with the lowest results (Slovakia, Luxembourg, Estonia, Czech Republic and Belgium) in order to move towards more competitive energy markets.

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Fig. 1

Source: Own elaboration

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Source: Own elaboration

Fig. 3

Source: Own elaboration

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Notes

  1. Firstly, the calculation is made with equal to 12 and, secondly, with n equal to 5, in order to calculate the mean. Thus, a mean is obtained, in which the last years of the period have more weight.

  2. The full liberalization of the electricity market in Cyprus was formally achieved on 1 January 2014 but it is still being implemented in practice.

  3. The Polish Economy Ministry establishes a support scheme based on tendering in November 2013. However, this system bears an energy price risk for investors and tends to give advantages to large operators which might disfavour small investors (Ecologic Institute 2014).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Business, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of A Coruna, Campus Elvina s/n, 15071, La Coruña, Spain

    María Teresa García-Álvarez

  2. Research Centre in Economics and Finance (CEFUP) and Faculty of Economics, University of Porto, Rua Dr Roberto Frias s/n, 4200-464, Porto, Portugal

    Isabel Soares

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  1. María Teresa García-Álvarez
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  2. Isabel Soares
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Correspondence to María Teresa García-Álvarez.

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García-Álvarez, M.T., Soares, I. Empirical assessment of sustainable energy markets in the EU-28. Environ Dev Sustain 20 (Suppl 1), 83–108 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-018-0172-5

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