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Europe's energy transition is accelerated by the Russia-Ukraine war: A novel assessment based on two scenario simulations

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  • Yang, Xiaoli
  • Cui, Wei
  • Yang, Xiaoxia

Abstract

The Russia-Ukraine conflict has profoundly affected the global energy crisis. Since the escalation of the war in 2022, there has been a substantial reduction in energy exports from Russia to European countries. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war on Europe's energy transition from a new perspective by comparing two scenarios: a war scenario and a no-war scenario. To improve the prediction accuracy of energy transitions under no geopolitical influence, three single models and two combined models are employed. Based on the above-proposed approaches, the energy transition processes in Germany, Britain, the Netherlands and Poland are simulated from January 2011 to June 2024. The results show that the Mean Absolute Percentage Errors (MAPE) of the two combined models (MNGM-BPNN and MNGM-ARIMA) are much lower than that of the single model, providing a more reliable prediction result. Furthermore, the proportion of renewable energy in total energy after 2022 in Germany, Britain and Poland is significantly higher in the war scenario than in the no-war scenario. In contrast, the Netherlands appears to have not significantly increased its proportion of renewable energy. Over time, the differences in the proportion of renewable energy between war and no-war scenarios in Germany, Britain, and Poland continue to widen. It suggests that the conflict may accelerate their energy transition processes. These results highlight the complex interplay between geopolitical events and energy transition in Europe.

Suggested Citation

  • Yang, Xiaoli & Cui, Wei & Yang, Xiaoxia, 2025. "Europe's energy transition is accelerated by the Russia-Ukraine war: A novel assessment based on two scenario simulations," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:255:y:2025:i:c:s0960148125014879
    DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2025.123823
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