An empirical economic and environmental assessment of renewable energy consumption and efficiency in the United Kingdom

The primary objective of this study is to empirically analyse the relationship between renewable energy consumption in the UK and the International Energy Agency’s energy transition indicators. The research tasks include an empirical assessment of the relationship between renewable energy consumption and energy transition indicators using Ordinary Least Squares and Instrumental Variable estimations to identify causal impacts. The study examines these effects across the industrial, transport, residential, and commercial sectors while estimating an energy efficiency ratio to quantify the effectiveness of renewables utilisation in the UK. Multivariate regression analysis scrutinising the relationship between renewable energy consumption and the energy transition indicators in the UK shows that increase in total final consumption of the renewable energy leads to considerable decrease of carbon dioxide emissions, energy and carbon intensity as well as to GDP growth accordingly. The results indicate that sectoral renewable consumption contributes to lower carbon and energy intensity. While these findings align with incentivised economic development, the study acknowledges that sectoral impact magnitudes should be viewed with caution in the absence of more granular, sector-specific economic control variables. This approach ensures the findings reflect exogenous structural impacts rather than cyclical macroeconomic fluctuations, maintaining a consistent assessment across the 1990–2023 period. From environmental-economic perspective this research makes unambiguous conclusion regarding the significance of renewables consumption in the UK for the energy transition. Additionally, the study acknowledges that renewable energy efficiency improvement reduces carbon and energy intensity in Total Final Consumption Renewables and across key UK sectors.