The sustainable development and energy security are currently the priority challenges for the European Union countries. The sustainable and stable development of European economies is closely dependent on the stable access to energy resources. The constant increase of the demand for electricity requires long-term planning of the common European policy. The aim of the article is to analyse the fuel and energy resources situation of the member states with regard to their energy balances and with the determination of their import dependence in relation to fossil fuels, such as: coal, oil and natural gas. Based on the collected statistical data the analysis of clusters was presented in order to separate homogenous subsets, that is groups of the European Union Member States. The squared Euclidean distance has been adopted as the measure of similarities of the member states in the clusters, and the k-means algorithm has been used as the method of grouping. As a result of the analysis seven clusters were selected-groups of homogenous countries in terms of the import dependence due to the major energy resources (oil, natural gas and coal). The results of the paper can constitute bases for shaping the appropriate long-term common energy policy for the listed potential groups of countries. Statistical data were collected based on the Eurostat publication.
The decarbonization of European economies is an established reality that has been accelerating in recent years. The focus of EU policy is on the dynamic transformation of the energy balances of Member States, which most significantly impacts economies reliant on coal. In the context of emerging megatrends, this study sets out to determine the extent of changes occurring in the economies of European Union countries in relation to the Green Deal paradigm. The objective of this article is to introduce a comprehensive method developed by the authors for assessing the dynamics of energy transformation in the European Union countries under study. This method is divided into two phases. Initially, countries are classified according to the energy transformation dynamics matrix. Subsequently, the actual assessment of energy transformation dynamics is conducted using a novel composite indicator, the ETPI (Energy Transition Progress Index), based on analyses for 2022 and 2013 using Eurostat data. The results identify leaders in energy transformation, such as Sweden, Germany, Denmark, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Finland, and the Netherlands, while highlighting significant challenges facing Poland and Bulgaria.
The economic development of the EU’s countries depends on stable and permanent access to various energy sources. The integration of European energy markets is a long-term process. Each member country has a different energy balance, energy resources and electricity generation technologies. Therefore, comparing Member States with one another is a complex task. The article deals with organizing the set of objects in multidimensional spaces of variables from the point of view of a certain characteristics that cannot be measured in a simple way, i.e., the relative level of the development of energy markets. The following diagnostic variables were adopted for the analysis: consumption of electric energy generated from renewables per capita (TWH/person), hard coal consumption (million tons/person), greenhouse gas emissions per capita, available for final consumption gigawatt-hour per person, final energy consumption thousand tons of oil equivalent (TOE) per person, petroleum available for final consumption (gigawatt-hour), natural gas (terajoule gross calorific value-GCV) per person, energy intensity of GDP (kilograms of oil equivalent (KGOE) per thousand euro, import dependency %. The article draws upon the cluster analysis, which uses the methods and techniques that enable to extract such objects (countries) from the data set, which would be similar to each other and combine them into groups. The purpose of the article is to examine and discus the diversity of Member States on the level of development of energy markets taking into account the specific situation of Poland. The presented model has the potential to be used at the level of enterprises from various industries to evaluate the level of sustainable development. The algorithm modification will only require the selection of available diagnostic variables describing the given enterprise.
Primary fuels, i.e., crude oil, natural gas, and power coal, dominate the total global demand for primary energy. Among them, crude oil plays a particularly important role due to the universality of applications and the practical lack of substitutes in transport. Crude oil is also one of the main sources of primary energy in Poland and accounts for around 30% of the energy consumed. Poland covers only 3% of its needs from domestic deposits. The rest is imported from Russia, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Great Britain, Kazakhstan, and Norway. Due to such a high import of raw material, Poland must anticipate future demand. On the one hand, this article aims to analyze the current (2020) and future (2040) crude oil consumption on the Polish market. The study analyzes the geopolitical and economic foundations of the functioning of the energy raw-materials market, the crude oil supply, the structure of Poland’s energy mix, and assumptions about the energy policy until 2040. On the other hand, conclusions from the research were used to build a model of crude oil consumption for the internal market. It has been also shown that the consumption of crude oil on the Polish market is a nonlinear phenomenon with a small set of statistical data, which makes it difficult to build an accurate model. This paper proposes a new model based on artificial neural networks that includes long-term memory (LSTM). The accuracy of the constructed model was assessed using the MSE, Theil, and Janus coefficients. The results show that LSTM models can be used to forecast crude oil consumption, and they cope with the nonstationary and nonlinear time series. Many important contemporary problems posed in the field of energy economy are also discussed, and it is proposed to solve them with the use of modern machine-learning tools.
Energy markets play an important role in achieving sustainable development goals. The sector of energy has a huge impact on the environment, hence changes in it are the highest priority in the European Union. The process of shaping and developing the internal energy market plays an important role in improving the security of supply of energy resources for the entire union. It requires a number of political negotiations, strategic decisions regarding energy liberalization, in particular, the electricity and gas sectors, as well as the adoption of sectoral legislation. The aim of the conducted research is to estimate the level of development of energy markets in the EU countries and to indicate the position of Poland in comparison to other countries. The research was performed in several stages. The first phase consisted of selecting appropriate diagnostic variables that comprehensively describe energy markets in countries belonging to the European Union. The next stage was collecting data, subjecting them to standardization, and then, based on the agglomeration algorithm, the process of dividing into groups of similar countries was carried out. The research results can be used as guidelines for legal regulations being prepared in the energy sectors of all member states, which can be used for selected clusters comprising similar countries in terms of the development of energy markets.
Climate neutrality is the main environmental goal set for the European Union Member States until 2050. EU economies can achieve this ambitious climate goal by reducing the emission intensity of economies, which has been achieved for many years by reducing pollution emitted by industry. The aim of the study is focused primarily on demonstrating the degree of relationship between the variables describing economic growth, GDP, and the level of CO2 emissions. In the first stage of the research, the potential of countries to achieve climate neutrality was assessed, which was achieved by estimating the correlation between GDP indices in relation to 2013 and the level of CO2 emissions. Research has shown that despite the countries’ differences in the structure of their energy balances, they can achieve independence of economic growth from the emission level of their economies. The research also concerns Poland’s special situation compared to other European Union countries according to energy balance based on coal. A model based on differential equations was used to simulate the impact of GDP, energy intensity, and the share of biofuels on temperature and CO2 concentration until 2030, using data for Poland as an example. The aim of this analysis is to answer the question of whether the energy transformation in the country will achieve the assumed emission reduction goals by 2030.