The role of energy efficiency and research and development in promoting renewable energy development in the European Union region

Abstract Renewable energy (RE) is fundamental in unlocking the dilemma in promoting economic goods and environmental protection. The United Nations (UN) through the “Sustainable Development Goals” (SDGs) is committed to promoting sustainable economic growth (SEG), through the utilization of clean energy. To this end, literature presents studies that examine how to improve RE development. However, there remains a gap in the literature on how research and development (R&D) and energy efficiency (EE) promote RE development in the European Union (EU). The analysis of this research utilizes the data of the EU economies for the time ranging from 1990 to 2019. The “Methods of Moments Quantile Regression (MMQR)” is adopted to overcome “cross‐sectional dependence (CD)” and “heterogeneity” where longitudinal data is used. The findings show that EE and R&D are fundamental in promoting RE development in the EU economies. Inflation is also associated with improved RE development. However, the per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and financial development (FD) reduce RE development in the EU region. The major policies presented in this research encourage governments to promote expenditure on R&D in order to support the development of RE resources.