Estimating and forecasting the impact of nonrenewable energy prices on US renewable energy consumption

This paper measures the impact of nonrenewable energy prices on renewable energy consumption in the U.S. We do so using monthly data for the period 1973:1–2018:12, and a series of recursively identified VAR models with nonrenewable energy prices ordered ahead of renewable energy consumption measures in each of the VAR models. We also investigate whether information on nonrenewable energy prices can be used to improve forecasts of renewable energy consumption. Our general findings are as follows (i) Shocks to nonrenewable energy prices have positive and statistically significant impacts on renewable energy consumption. (ii) Allowing for nonlinearities/asymmetries in nonrenewable energy prices lead to more statistical significance in the responses of the various renewable energy consumption measures (iii) The percentage of the variation in renewable energy consumption that is explained by nonrenewable energy prices is quantitatively small. (iv) In many cases, models with nonrenewable energy prices improve the forecast performance of simple AR models. •We analyze the relationship between nonrenewable energy prices and renewable energy consumption.•We focus on US monthly data (1974–2018) and use SVAR models.•We record a significant positive impact of nonrenewable energy prices on renewable energy consumption in the medium to long run.•Nonrenewable price data also improve renewable energy consumption forecasts.