Determinants of Renewable Energy Adoption: Evidence from Italian Firms

Renewable energy technologies are essential innovations that firms can adopt with a view to achieve energy transition. Existing literature on green energy determinants has mainly investigated the role of energy prices, in order to explain renewables diffusion. However, if we include these technologies within the theoretical framework of environmental innovations, it is possible to extend the analysis to other factors. We investigate green energy determinants by focusing on the role of public policies, firms’ structural characteristics, internationalisation, and pollution intensity. The analysis takes into account both internal and external factors related to the firm. We employ an original dataset of Italian manufacturing firms combining the energy audit database from ENEA with balance sheet data from Aida Bureau van Dijk and other variables selected from five different databases. Our empirical results emphasise the role of supply-side policies, companies’ dimension, energy-related factors, and pollution intensity levels as determinants that increase the likelihood of adopting renewable energy technologies.

CLEMENTI Enrico;  GAROFALO Giuseppe; 

2024-04-22

Boeck Universite

JRC129167

2032-5355 (online),   

https://www.cairn.info/load_pdf.php?ID_ARTICLE=JIE_PR1_0143,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC129167,   

10.3917/jie.pr1.0143 (online),