The Widening Profitability Gap between Renewable and Fossil Power Firms in Europe
Mobilising private capital is a critical bottleneck of the energy transition, yet recent crisis-driven windfall profits for fossil power firms suggest that market signals may still favour carbon-intensive assets. Here we analyse a panel of 900 European power firms (2001-2023) to resolve whether these profits reflect a durable profitability advantage or a crisis-driven anomaly. Using machine-learning clustering and Bayesian model averaging, we identify a structural divergence: wind and solar portfolios exhibit rising profitability, with return on assets among wind-dominated firms increasing by over 6% between 2014 and 2023. Conversely, higher fossil portfolio shares are increasingly associated with lower profitability, with marginal effects reaching -4% by 2023, while renewable-dominated firms match or outperform their fossil-heavy counterparts across most European regions. These findings suggest that the record profits of fossil incumbents were distinct outliers, masking an ongoing decline in the profitability of carbon-intensive business models.