No abstract

The more frequent meteorological anomalies and climate changes push us to consider green sustainable energy as a chance to slow down such issues. Thus, we should introspect the correlations between indicators over time and understand the underneath of their meaning. Large volumes of data regarding energy are provided by Eurostat and other official data sources that require data analytics to extract valuable insights from energy indicators and indices to better understand the dynamics towards a green energy transition of the European Union State Members (EU-SM). In this paper, we analyze several energy indicators calculated for a 12-year time span with statistics and machine learning techniques, such as an unsupervised clustering algorithm with Self-Organizing Maps (SOM). Grouping the EU-SM by energy indicators from the beginning years to the end of the analyzed interval reveals differences and similarities in their efforts, shifted trends, influencing power and tendencies towards a green energy transition. The results of our analyses can be further used to assess the efficiency of stimuli for green energy generation and improve the policymakers' strategies.

This paper presents a heuristic methodology for estimating the possible variation of the liquid biofuel potential of a region, an appraisal made for a future period of time. The determination of the liquid biofuel potential has been made up either on the account of an average (constant) yield of the energetic crops that were used, or on the account of a yield that varies depending on a known trend, which can be estimated through a certain method. The proposed methodology uses the variation of the yield of energetic crops over time in order to simulate a variation of the biofuel potential for a future ten year time period. This new approach to the problem of determining the liquid biofuel potential of a certain land area can be useful for investors, as it allows making a more realistic analysis of the investment risk and of the possibilities of recovering the investment. On the other hand, the presented methodology can be useful to the governmental administration in order to elaborate strategies and policies to ensure the necessity of fuels and liquid biofuels for transportation, in a certain area. Unlike current methods, which approach the problem of determining the liquid biofuel potential in a deterministic way, by using econometric methods, the proposed methodology uses heuristic reasoning schemes in order to reduce the great number of factors that actually influence the biofuel potential and which usually have unknown values.

The paper describes the tendencies in the implementation of renewable energy sources in Romania until 2050. It is presented some arguments to justify the necessity to implement the renewable energy sources. Using the potential of renewable sources previously estimated for Romania are presented two scenarios with the necessary considerations.

Energetic resources represent one of the most important factors in the process of consolidation of competitive market economy, having also a very important role in assuring the functionality of the economic system components. The decline of oil and gas production imposes the necessity to identify and implement new energy sources. Another reason to identify new energy sources is the pollution that is generated by the fossil fuel burn. The chapter presents a methodology about the solar energy potential evaluation for Romania. As a result of the tax incentives that are offered to investors in renewable energy, many projects were developed in Romania in the recent years, especially about wind and solar energy. But many projects have been done without a realistic assessment of potential wind or solar energy, as the consulting firms had presented an exaggerated image of the financial potential of these investments.