The Drivers of green energy consumption in East African Community

Abstract

The The study examines the effects of environmental policy quality, GDP per capita, quality of policy and institutional frameworks, regulatory effectiveness, population growth, electricity access, and research and development investments on green energy consumption in the East African Community (EAC). The study employed the FMOLS and CCR models for analysis.  Data was sourced from the World Development Indicators (WDI) and International Energy Agency (IEA) for the EAC from 2000 to 2022. The study found that regulatory quality, quality of environmental policies, and access to electricity has a positive and significant long-run effect on green energy consumption in the EAC. However, the study also found that GDP per capita and the Quality of Institutions and Policies do not have a long-run effect on green energy consumption in the EAC. Given the global attention to Green Energy Consumption as a solution to climate change and to meet energy needs, this study discloses less studied drivers of Green Energy Consumption (as a proxy of Green Energy Transition), especially “Quality of environmental policies” in the EAC. Furthermore, most existing studies focus on renewable energy consumption, which includes solid biomass such as charcoal and firewood, while this study covers green energy consumption.