Temporal Analysis of Energy Transformation in EU Countries

Abstract

Due to the environmental policy adopted by the European Union (EU), EU countries are obliged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They reduce emissions largely through the energy transformation and switching to renewable energy sources (RES). Therefore, it is important to assess the progress of the energy transformation of individual EU countries. This is related to the aim of the article, which is a temporal analysis of the energy transformation process towards the transition to RES and reducing the use of fossil fuels in energy production. To achieve this goal, a new Temporal/Dynamic Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (T/DMCDM) method called Temporal PROSA was developed, based on the PROMETHEE and PROSA family of methods. The Temporal PROSA method, unlike many other T/DMCDM methods, enables the aggregation of data from many periods into a single final assessment, as well as the direct transfer of information from the examined periods to the overall result. As a result of the research, EU countries that dominated in terms of progress in energy transformation towards RES in the years 2004–2021were identified. Based on the data and methodology used, it was indicated that these countries are primarily Sweden and Portugal, and recently also Denmark and Finland. On the other hand, countries such as Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Luxembourg, and Poland made the least progress between 2004 and 2021.