IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/dzimps/279870.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Fossil fuel to the fire: Energy and inflation in Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Krahé, Max
  • Heilmann, Felix

Abstract

Energy made an outsized contribution to the recent inflationary wave in Europe: On average, 50 percent of year-on-year inflation in 2022 was directly due to energy, the vast majority of which was due to fossil fuel price rises. Additional inflationary effects followed from indirect impacts on other prices, especially food. Renewable energy can help fight inflation both in the short and in the long run. In the short run, faster renewable energy deployment saved European consumers around 95 billion euro between 2021 and 2023 and reduced electricity prices by up to 15 percent (IEA 2023c). In the long run, the secular downwards trend in renewable energy costs suggests further cost saving potential and, once the transition is complete, price stability. The situation is more complicated in the mid-transition. Three challenges appear salient: As long as electricity prices remain linked to fossil fuel prices, especially gas, any increase in fossil fuel price volatility spills over into the pricing of electricity. Supply chain risks may materialize as renewable energy deployment accelerates. And if investment in grids, energy storage, and supply- and demand-side flexibility fails to keep up with accelerating renewable deployment, further bottlenecks and price spikes may emerge. However, these risks are not set in stone. The extent to which they will materialize will depend on today's policy choices. While further research and policy action is needed on the mid-transition, the overall picture that emerges from our analysis is therefore clear: fossil fuels added to the economic and political instability of recent years. Replacing them with renewables can become a pillar of future stability.

Suggested Citation

  • Krahé, Max & Heilmann, Felix, 2023. "Fossil fuel to the fire: Energy and inflation in Europe," Papers 279870, Dezernat Zukunft - Institute for Macrofinance, Berlin.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:dzimps:279870
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/279870/1/1870862295.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Scholten, Daniel & Bazilian, Morgan & Overland, Indra & Westphal, Kirsten, 2020. "The geopolitics of renewables: New board, new game," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    2. Checherita-Westphal, Cristina & Dorrucci, Ettore, 2023. "Update on euro area fiscal policy responses to the energy crisis and high inflation," Economic Bulletin Boxes, European Central Bank, vol. 2.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gallaher, Adam & Graziano, Marcello & Fiaschetti, Maurizio, 2021. "Legacy and shockwaves: A spatial analysis of strengthening resilience of the power grid in Connecticut," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    2. Huang, Shupei & Wang, Xinya & Ji, Qiang, 2025. "How unexpected geopolitical risk affect the nonlinear spillover among energy and metal markets?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    3. Chen, Zhuoyi & Liu, Yuanyuan & Zhang, Hongwei, 2024. "Can geopolitical risks impact the long-run correlation between crude oil and clean energy markets? Evidence from a regime-switching analysis," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 229(C).
    4. Gavin Bridge & Ludger Gailing, 2020. "New energy spaces: Towards a geographical political economy of energy transition," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(6), pages 1037-1050, September.
    5. Bartocci, Anna & Cantelmo, Alessandro & Cova, Pietro & Notarpietro, Alessandro & Pisani, Massimiliano, 2024. "Monetary and fiscal policy responses to fossil fuel price shocks," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    6. Srivastava, Nidhi, 2023. "Trade in critical minerals: Revisiting the legal regime in times of energy transition," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    7. Maarten Wolsink, 2020. "Framing in Renewable Energy Policies: A Glossary," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-31, June.
    8. Işık, Cem & Kuziboev, Bekhzod & Ongan, Serdar & Saidmamatov, Olimjon & Mirkhoshimova, Mokhirakhon & Rajabov, Alibek, 2024. "The volatility of global energy uncertainty: Renewable alternatives," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 297(C).
    9. Briodeau Clémence & Checherita-Westphal Cristina, 2024. "Inflation and Fiscal Policy: Is There a Threshold Effect in the Fiscal Reaction Function?," The Economists' Voice, De Gruyter, vol. 21(2), pages 223-236.
    10. Liu, Chen & Shao, Zhen & Jiao, Jianling & Yang, Shanlin, 2024. "How connected is withholding capacity to electricity, fossil fuel and carbon markets? Perspectives from a high renewable energy consumption economy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    11. Distefano, Tiziano & D’Alessandro, Simone, 2023. "Introduction of the carbon tax in Italy: Is there room for a quadruple-dividend effect?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    12. Simone Emiliozzi & Fabrizio Ferriani & Andrea Gazzani, 2025. "The European Energy Crisis and the Consequences for the Global Natural Gas Market," The Energy Journal, , vol. 46(1), pages 119-145, January.
    13. Zhang, Xiaojing & Chang, Hsu-Ling & Su, Chi-Wei & Qin, Meng & Umar, Muhammad, 2024. "Exploring the dynamic interaction between geopolitical risks and lithium prices: A time-varying analysis," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    14. Khan, Khalid & Khurshid, Adnan & Cifuentes-Faura, Javier & Xianjun, Dai, 2024. "Does renewable energy development enhance energy security?," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    15. Nickel, Christiane & Kilponen, Juha & Moral-Benito, Enrique & Koester, Gerrit & Ciccarelli, Matteo & Enders, Almira & Holton, Sarah & Landau, Bettina & Venditti, Fabrizio & Bobeica, Elena & Brand, Cla, 2025. "A strategic view on the economic and inflation environment in the euro area," Occasional Paper Series 371, European Central Bank.
    16. Islam, Md. Monirul & Shahbaz, Muhammad & Sohag, Kazi, 2025. "Financial innovation and clean energy technology development: Policy vs. geopolitics," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 246(C).
    17. Romanova, Tatiana, 2023. "A choice between neoliberal engagement and strategic autonomy? The impossibility of EU's green cooperation with Russia between 2019 and 2021," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    18. Lin, Boqiang & Zhang, Zongyou, 2025. "Geopolitics of renewable energy development: The role of energy metals," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    19. Zhang, Qingjun & Chen, Rong & Ma, Sijie & Liang, Anran, 2024. "Nord stream 2, geopolitical conflicts and energy security: Evidence from EU regions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 313(C).
    20. Yang, Tianle & Dong, Qingyuan & Du, Min & Du, Qunyang, 2023. "Geopolitical risks, oil price shocks and inflation: Evidence from a TVP–SV–VAR approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(PB).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:dzimps:279870. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.dezernatzukunft.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.