Renewable Energy and the Load Capacity Factor: A New Indicator for Environmental Sustainability

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue of Sustainability will discuss the impact of renewable energy on environmental sustainability from a different perspective. One of the most effective ways to avoid the high carbon dioxide emissions caused by fossil fuels is to promote and expand the use of renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, hydropower, and biomass. In this context, analyzing the impact of renewable energy on environmental degradation has been an attractive topic for researchers, especially since the 2000s. The impact of renewable energy on carbon dioxide emissions has been empirically investigated in many studies. Recently, some researchers have begun to discuss the role of renewable energy in reducing the ecological footprint as a more comprehensive environmental indicator, since carbon emissions do not fully reflect environmental problems.

However, the ecological footprint also has some limitations for assessing environmental sustainability. While the ecological footprint indicates the demand side of natural resources, biocapacity shows the supply side of natural resources to meet human demand. Therefore, an analysis that considers ecological footprint and biocapacity simultaneously can be considered a more accurate method to evaluate environmental sustainability. In this context, the load capacity factor, calculated as biocapacity/ecological footprint, is an environmental indicator with a much wider scope. The load capacity factor can provide a broad environmental quality perspective by simultaneously examining the supply and demand aspects of nature. A load capacity factor of "1" or higher indicates that the environmental situation is “sustainable”, while a load capacity factor of less than 1 indicates that the environmental quality is in danger.

The Special Issue encourages econometric analyses that examine determinants of the load capacity factor, particularly renewable energy. This will provide a more comprehensive and accurate roadmap for assessing environmental sustainability. Is renewable energy production and consumption an important criterion for developing the load capacity factor? The Special Issue essentially invites research that answers this question, though the theme is not limited to this. Studies that use recent panel data and time series analyses to examine other macroeconomic indicators that may have an impact on the load capacity factor are also invited to this Special Issue.

Dr. Ugur Korkut Pata
Dr. Zeeshan Fareed
Prof. Dr. Daniel Balsalobre-Lorente
Dr. Farrukh Shahzad
Guest Editors

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• renewable energy consumption
• renewable energy production
• load capacity factor
• environmental indicators
• EKC hypothesis
• panel data analysis
• time series analysis
• environmental sustainability
• ecological sustainability
• environmental technologies
• R&D investments
• energy policy