Energy mix and intensity in Portugal: Portraits from aggregate and firm-level data

This article presents the path of several aggregate energy indicators for Portugal and the Euro
area in the last three decades. In addition, we use Portuguese firm-level data on electricity and
liquid fuels expenditures to assess firms’ electrification and efficiency, while also correlating
those indicators with their size. The article ultimately aims at sheding light on the pace of
transformation towards an electrically driven, renewable and energy efficient economy. Overall,
we identify some progress in the renewable-based electrification of the Portuguese and Euro
area economies, as well as sizeable progress in energy intensity in Portugal since the mid 2000s.
Moreover, controlling for firms’ heterogeneity, we find a robust negative correlation between
energy intensity and firms’ size and partial evidence of a negative correlation between the
share of electricity on total energy expenditures and firms’ size. Finally, we identify a negative
correlation between the share of electricity on firms’ energy expenditure and their energy
intensity ratio.