Investigating factors affecting renewable energy consumption: A panel data analysis in Sub Saharan Africa

Abstract Renewable energy remains Sub-Saharan Africa's (SSAs) best option to leapfrog and escape the learning curve in energy access while simultaneously combating climate change. Consequently, it is imperative to understand the relationships between SSAs renewable energy consumption and social, economic, and environmental explanatory variables. This paper puts forward an empirical model to outline the factors that can promote renewable energy consumption. We considered the panel autoregressive distributed lags (ARDL) panel models of 23 SSA countries with annual data from 1998 to 2014. From the main findings, the dependent variable renewable energy consumption is significant and positively correlates with the independent variables gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and education index in the long run as expected. Whereas renewable energy consumption is significant and negatively correlates with the independent variables, CO2 emissions per capita, and life expectancy index in the long run. The study highlights the potential of effective management and implementation of renewable energy development in promoting social indicators such education indexes, while improving economies and reducing CO2 emissions.