Abstract

One of the key contemporary economic and social issues today is the global energy transition. Energy transition processes are having a significant impact on the development of world economies, increasing their TFP and leading to an increase in their level of innovation through the transfer of myriad new technologies. These processes also contribute to an increase in foreign direct investment and, consequently, an increase in the level of business investment, the competitiveness of economies and changes in the labor market. Additionally, contributing to the systematic and dynamic development of the energy transition are the significant increase in the wealth of the population, the change in the degree of social and income inequality, the change in consumption patterns and the significantly increased consumption of energy by households, which until re-cently relied exclusively on the use of energy from conventional sources. It should be noted that the ongoing energy transition processes most strongly affect the development of energy markets, the largest of which are the electricity primary fuel markets. Currently, energy markets represent an increasingly significant aspect of modern economies in terms of business investment, the share of the sector’s output in GDP, as well as research and development. In recent years, the renewable energy sector has also been gaining importance as a natural complement to the two aforementioned markets. All the above-mentioned aspects of the development of modern economies point to the need to take a fresh look at the development and functioning of energy markets. Of particular importance seems to be the analysis of changes in the prices of electricity and primary fuels and the relationship between these markets and the renewable energy mar-ket. Equally important are analyses to identify development trends already occurring in the energy markets and to make predictions about the formation of these trends in the fu-ture. Such identified studies should provide valuable guidance for the purposes of con-ducting current energy policy and creating institutional and legal conditions for the development of energy markets. Conclusions from research on energy markets also provide substantive arguments for the assumptions of global energy strategies, as well as the energy strategy of individual countries.

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