I have no access to renewable energy consumption data, what can I use as a proxy in order to run a regression analysis to see the impact of renewable energy consumption on growth?
Pamelah Cheuka, It's important to know, which sector that you wanted to analyse the renewable energy consumption pattern... whether it's at the household level, farm level or industry/ business sector level or at the macro (national) level, depending on which the data requirement also may change. May be, it's also important to look at the literature using different models, such as the surrogate pricing method, being used to derive proxy values for energy. Cost avoided for purchasing conventional energy also can be a suitable variable (measure), in which, you consider the cost of purchase for conventional energy units in the process of production (manufacturing) - agriculture or industry, as the case maybe.
This is vast area comprising wind, solar, hydro, bio mass, bio gas, tilde, gio etc., My advice is ------- first you have to select the most suitable and important renewable energy source (which you are interest or available in your area) and deeply concern the particular source only.