Renewable Energy Consumption in the European Union: Are Nordic Countries in the Lead?

Variable	Full name
x₁	Share of renewable energy in gross final energy consumption (total)
x₂	Share of renewable energy in gross final energy consumption in transport
x₃	Share of renewable energy in gross final energy consumption in electricity
x₄	Share of renewable energy in gross final energy consumption in heating and cooling

[i] Source: own elaboration

Table 2.

Selected total ordering methods

Method	Synthetic variable	Comments
Hellwig	$Q_{i} = 1 - \frac{d_{i}^{+}}{d_{0}}$	$\begin{array}{l} d_{i}^{+} = \sqrt{\sum_{j = 1}^{m} {(z_{i j} - z_{j}^{+})}^{2}}; d_{0} = \bar{d} + 2 S_{d}; \\ z_{i j} = \frac{x_{i j} - {\bar{x}}_{j}}{s_{i}}; z_{i}^{+} = max_{i} z_{i j}; \bar{d} = \frac{1}{n} \sum_{i = 1}^{n} d_{i}^{+}; \\ S_{d} = \sqrt{\frac{1}{n} \sum_{i = 1}^{n} {(d_{i}^{+} - \bar{d})}^{2}} \end{array}$
TOPSIS	$Q_{i} = \frac{d_{i}^{-}}{d_{i}^{-} + d_{i}^{+}}$	$\begin{array}{l} d_{i}^{+} = \sqrt{\sum_{j = 1}^{m} {(z_{i j} - z_{j}^{+})}^{2}}; d_{i}^{-} = \sqrt{\sum_{j = 1}^{m} {(z_{i j} - z_{j}^{-})}^{2};} \\ z_{i j} = x_{i j} {(\sum_{i = 1}^{n} x_{i j}^{2})}^{- \frac{1}{2}}; z_{j}^{+} = max_{i} z_{i j}; z_{j}^{-} = min_{i} z_{i j} \end{array}$
SSW	$Q_{i} = \frac{1}{m} \sum_{j = 1}^{m} z_{i j}$	$z_{i j} = \frac{x_{i j} - {\bar{x}}_{j}}{S_{j}}$
MUZ	$Q_{i} = \frac{1}{m} \sum_{j = 1}^{m} z_{i j}$	$z_{i j} = \frac{x_{i j} - min_{i} x_{i j}}{max_{i} x_{i j} - min_{i} x_{i j}}$

[i] Note: Q_i is the value of the synthetic metric for object i (i=1,2,…,n); x_ij are the actual values of feature X_j (j=1,2,…,m) for object i; x̅_j is the arithmetic mean for feature X_j, S_j is the standard deviation for feature X_j.

[ii] HELLWIG, Hellwig method; MUZ, zero-based unitisation method; SSW, the method of sums of standardised values; TOPSIS, the technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution.

Descriptive statistics for the diagnostic variables for 2015 and 2022.
*Source:* own elaboration based on results

Table 3.

Coefficient of correlation between the variables in 2015 and 2022

Year	2015			2022
Variable	X₁	X₂	X₃	X₁	X₂	X₃
X₂	0.525^**			0.590^**
X₃	0.795^***	0.351		0.742^***	0.405^*
X₄	0.930^***	0.369	0.574^**	0.859^***	0.351	0.394^*

Note: Statistically significant respectively

*: p-value <0.05;

**: p-value <0.01;

***: p-value <0.001

Source: own study based on the results

Country ranks according to the four ordering procedures for 2022 data.
*Source:* own elaboration based on results.
*Note:* Method designations as in Table 2. HELLWIG, Hellwig method; MUZ, zero-based unitisation method; SSW, the method of sums of standardised values; TOPSIS, the technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution

Table 4.

Values of m_pq and u̅_p calculated with Eqs (1) and (2)

Method	HELLWIG	TOPSIS	SSW	MUZ	*u̅_p*
HELLWIG	1.000	0.890	0.945	0.918	0.918
TOPSIS	0.890	1.000	0.896	0.885	0.890
SSW	0.945	0.896	1.000	0.962	0.934
MUZ	0.918	0.885	0.962	1.000	0.921

[i] Note: Method designations as in Table 2

[ii] Source: own study based on the results

[iii] HELLWIG, Hellwig method; MUZ, zero-based unitisation method; SSW, the method of sums of standardised values; TOPSIS, the technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution

Ranks of European Union member states for 2022 and 2015 by development of RES consumption calculated with the SSW method.
*Source:* own elaboration based on results. RES, renewable energy sources

Table 5.

Groups of European Union member states similar in terms of the development of RES consumption in 2022

Group	Country (acronym)
Group 1	Sweden (SE), Finland (FI), Denmark (DK)
Group 2	Latvia (LV), Austria (AT), Portugal (PT), Estonia (EE), Lithuania (LT), Croatia (HR)
Group 3	Spain (ES), Slovenia (SI), Romania (RO), Germany (DE), Italy (IT), Greece (GR), France (FR), Cyprus (CY)
Group 4	Bulgaria (BG), Netherlands (NL), Malta (MT), Slovakia (SK), Belgium (BE), Czechia (CZ), Poland (PL), Hungary (HU), Luxembourg (LU), Ireland (IE)

[i] Source: own study based on the results

Table 6.

Descriptive statistics for group metrics, 2022

Group	Characteristics	X₁	X₂	X₃	X₄
I	min.	41.60	10.24	47.93	50.11
	max.	66.00	29.16	83.34	69.39
	mean	51.83	19.41	69.50	59.35
II	min.	29.35	2.40	26.46	30.58
	max.	43.32	10.14	74.67	65.44
	mean	34.86	6.59	50.00	48.55
III	min.	19.01	4.08	10.13	8.59
	max.	25.00	10.81	50.90	41.56
	mean	21.68	8.64	33.94	26.79
IV	min.	13.11	5.51	15.34	6.30
	max.	19.10	10.35	36.78	25.80
	mean	15.65	7.75	22.37	17.28

[i] Source: own study based on the results

Share of renewable energy in gross final energy consumption in European Union member states in 2015 and 2022 vs European Union averages.
*Source:* own elaboration based on: (Eurostat, 2024). AT, Austria; BE, Belgium; BG, Bulgaria; CY, Cyprus; CZ, Czechia; DK, Denmark; DE, Germany; EE, Estonia; ES, Spain; FI, Finland; FR, France; GR, Greece; HR, Croatia; HU, Hungary; IE, Ireland; IT, Italy; LT, Lithuania; LU, Luxembourg; LV, Latvia; MT, Malta; NL, Netherlands; PL, Poland; PT, Portugal; RO, Romania; SE, Sweden; SI, Slovenia; SK, Slovakia

RES in sectors [%] in European Union member states in 2015 and 2022 vs European Union averages.
*Source:* own elaboration based on: (Eurostat, 2024). AT, Austria; BE, Belgium; BG, Bulgaria; CZ, Czechia; CY, Cyprus; DK, Denmark; DE, Germany; EE, Estonia; ES, Spain; FI, Finland; FR, France; GR, Greece; HR, Croatia; HU, Hungary; IE, Ireland; IT, Italy; LT, Lithuania; LU, Luxembourg; LV, Latvia; MT, Malta; NL, Netherlands; PL, Poland; PT, Portugal; RES, renewable energy sources; RO, Romania; SE, Sweden; SI, Slovenia; SK, Slovakia

2022/2015 relative changes for the diagnostic variables. *: double value; **: quadruple value
*Source:* own elaboration based on the results. AT, Austria; BE, Belgium; BG, Bulgaria; CY, Cyprus; CZ, Czechia; DK, Denmark; DE, Germany; EE, Estonia; ES, Spain; FI, Finland; FR, France; GR, Greece; HR, Croatia; HU, Hungary; IE, Ireland; IT, Italy; LT, Lithuania; LU, Luxembourg; LV, Latvia; MT, Malta; NL, Netherlands; PL, Poland; PT, Portugal; RO, Romania; SE, Sweden; SI, Slovenia; SK, Slovakia

References

Authors

Metrics

Articles in this issue

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ceej-2026-0010 | Journal eISSN: 2543-6821 | Journal ISSN: 2544-9001

Journal RSS Feed

Language: English

Page range: 172 - 191

Submitted on: Nov 3, 2025

Accepted on: Apr 21, 2026

Published on: Jun 20, 2026

Published by: Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

Keywords:

renewable energy consumption,

European Union

JEL:

O13,

P48,

Q20

Related subjects:

Business and economics,

Political economics,

Economic theory, systems and structures,

Microeconomics,

Macroeconomics,

Economic policy

© 2026 Krzysztof Adam Firlej, published by Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Volume 13 (2026): Issue 60 (January 2026)

Renewable Energy Consumption in the European Union: Are Nordic Countries in the Lead?

Figures & Tables

Table 1.

Table 2.

Figure 1.

Table 3.

Figure 2.

Table 4.

Figure 3.

Table 5.

Table 6.

Figure 4.

Figure 5.

Figure 6.

Paradigm

My account