THE USE OF TAXONOMIC METHODS FOR THE ANALYSIS OF ELECTRICITY GENERATION FROM RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES BY THE INDIVIDUAL PROVINCES

ABSTRACT

The most crucial factor influencing economic development and social well-being, as well as resulting in the mitigation of the effects of social poverty is electricity and its availability. As a result, a given country’s growing economy generates an increasingly higher demand for energy. Even though the generation of electricity in the Polish power industry is still primarily based on fossil fuels, there is a visible increase in energy produced from renewable sources. In 2016, in Poland the share of renewable energy in the overall electricity production amounting to 13,7%. The individual provinces in Poland differ in the amount of electricity they generate from conventional and renewable sources. The volume of electricity production in the individual provinces depends on a number of factors, especially the degree of industrialisation in a given region as well as the number of population and households. The article presents the results of a comparative analysis of electricity production in the individual Polish provinces in 2016. The classification of the provinces in terms of electricity production was performed by means of a multidimensional analysis, a method which assigned the provinces to appropriate groups (clusters) with similar volumes of electricity production.

Keywords: electricity, renewable energy sources, k-means method, grouping