Renewable energy sources (RES) are gradually becoming one of the key elements in the process of achieving energy efficiency worldwide. This trend can be observed in many developed Western economies—for example, in the United States, as well as in the United Kingdom. Hence, the role of innovative policies for promoting energy efficiency is becoming crucial in transition to the post-carbon economy. The shift to the carbon-free future make all actors to face forgoing commitments Nevertheless, customers and residential households are the first and the most important players in the pursuit of the energy-efficient future. Without them, carbon-free economy based on RES would never take the shape as envisaged. Our paper focuses on the innovative strategies and policies studying the effect and the scope of RES penetration into the households. We employ and empirical analysis of the effects from using RES in households using an example of the residential households in the northwest region of the United Kingdom (UK) with and without solar photovoltaic (PV) panels and electric vehicles (EV). We analyse the four scenarios that are aimed at analysing the system dynamics and providing differentiation between systems in terms of the varying values of the gross demand, tariffs, metered import, and the total revenue. Our results demonstrate that the solar PV leads to the transfer of costs and wealth regardless of the ownership of PV and EVs. Solar energy generation reduces the share of UK solar PV households per kWh costs of the distribution system which causes the augmenting of the per unit charges as well as to the changes in payments for the electricity that impoverishes less wealthy customer groups. It also becomes clear that with the increase of EV penetration, the existing energy efficiency schemes would have to be revised.

This paper focuses on the key aspects of the technological leadership within the context of the fourth industrial revolution (also known as technology 4.0). Technology (or also "Industry") 4.0 is viewed as having a significant impact on today's world economic and social progress. The fourth industrial revolution is having a significant transformative impact on the global income levels and the quality of life of people all around the world. Nevertheless, in comparison with the previous industrial revolutions, fourth industrial revolution is tackling the physical, digital, and biological aspects of the development of the economy (e.g. biotech technologies). In addition, information technology became a ubiquitous part of human lives with such aspects as smart homes, smart cities and artificial intelligence dictating the pace of the economic growth and development. We show that it is very important to focus on these aspects of economic growth in order not to miss the breakthrough innovations that would ensure any country keeping up with the technological progress a leading position on the world's market. In general, our results show that poor leadership could be the biggest obstacle to a successful fourth industrial revolution strategy.

The optimal market structure is one of the fundamental issues of economic theory. At that, companies' efficiency in the market is associated with resource availability as a whole and finance resources, in particular. The structure of the banking market in terms of commercial loans determines a number of parameters of the economic system, such as its stability, growth potential, entrepreneurial activity, the state of commodity markets, the competitiveness of companies, etc. A comparative analysis of countries in terms of the ratio of commercial loans to GDP allows us to identify promising markets and strategic avenues for the development of the global banking industry and investment policy. However, a lack of regular and timely statistical reviews often impedes the identification. With the view to performing a comparative analysis for the EA/ЕU macroregion, the authors attempt to establish the types of the banking market in Russia based on a fuzzy rank approach using the probability theory. Using the data for 2009-2018, the authors assess bank concentration in Russia by a number of indicators. During the period under review, the volume of commercial banking lending in Russia experienced a steady increase. At the same time, there is a clear downward trend in the number of banks; several local "breakdowns" happen once every two years, i.e. the compression rate is reducing. Within the framework of the accepted gradation, the values of concentration indices taken separately do not allow arriving at a firm conclusion, since they indicate contradictory statuses of the sectoral market type. The integrated approach proposed in the paper helped find that, despite a relatively large number of participants in the Russian banking market, it should be primarily identified with a monopoly. At that, the values of the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) and standard concentration fall within the oligopoly boundaries. This indicates the fuzzy nature of the sectoral market. The empirical results obtained are of use when analyzing competition, developing antimonopoly regulation measures, adjusting the banking sector development strategy and investment policy.