The Role of Energy Quality in Shaping Long-Term Energy Intensity in Europe

Ruta Gentvilaite, Astrid Kander and Paul Warde
Additional contact information
Ruta Gentvilaite: Department of Economic History, Lund University, Box 7083, Lund 22007, Sweden
Astrid Kander: Department of Economic History, Lund University, Box 7083, Lund 22007, Sweden
Paul Warde: Department of History, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK

Energies, 2014, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-21

Abstract: On the European aggregate level there is an inverted-U curve for long-term energy intensity. In the 19th century aggregate European energy intensity rose, followed by a declining trend during the 20th century. This article discusses the possible explanations for the declining trend during the 20th century and explores the role of energy quality as expressed in energy prices. For the first time a complete set of national energy retail prices covering two centuries has been constructed and used for Britain, while the energy price data previously available for Sweden until 2000 has been updated to 2009. This allows us to explore the role of energy quality in shaping long-term energy intensity. We find no relation between energy quality and energy intensity in the 19th century, while energy quality may have stimulated the declining energy intensity in Europe over the 20th century, but is not the sole or even main reason for the decline. Rather, increased economic efficiency in the use of energy services seems to have been the main driver for the decline after 1970, presumably driven by the information and communication technology.

Keywords: energy quality; energy prices; energy intensity; Europe; England; Sweden (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/8/1/133/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/8/1/133/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:8:y:2014:i:1:p:133-153:d:44024

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().