Economic and fiscal dimensions of renewable energy resources: Comparison between European Union and Turkey

Energy policy is a system that plans the relation between energy supply and energy demand for short, medium and long term. Renewable energy can be defined as being able to renew itself equally to the energy received from the energy source or more quickly than the depletion rate of the source. The renewability of resources is indispensable for sustainable development. However, sustainable development should be handled not only environmentally, but also with its economic and social dimensions. Turkey's energy profile has a foreign-dependent character due to increasing demand and fossil sources. As the energy requirement is increasing constantly, improving the place of the renewable sources within the energy supply is an obligation. European Union focuses on green energy to reduce foreign dependency in energy. This research, using data between the years 1972-2017, includes the examination of relationship between the renewable energy consumption and economic development in Turkey by means of econometric methods. In order to express the energy consumption, energy import and renewable energy consumption factors are applied. Additionally, in respect to economic growth, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) factors are examined. As econometric method, cointegration tests will be implemented to search the formation of long term relation of serials. Casuality tests will be applied to analyze the causative relation between factors as well. Keywords: Renewable Energy, Sustainable Development, European Union, Turkey, Energy Import