Energy is essential for development and economic growth, but traditional non-renewable energy sources are finite and have significant adverse environmental impacts. Therefore, there is an increasing interest in energy generation from renewable sources. However, research to date in this field does not sufficiently identify the common factors determining the uptake of renewable energy in emerging and developed countries. This paper addresses that gap by identifying the complex interrelationships between factors that determine the extent to which countries convert to renewable energy. The article's primary focus is a detailed statistical analysis of 10 developed and 16 emerging countries using annual data from 1976–2018. The objective is to examine the interrelationships and elasticities between increased production of renewable energy and three key socioeconomic variables; GDP, CO2 emissions, and oil price. This research uses panel data and time-series analyses to identify panel and country-specific elasticity of renewable energy production and dynamic causal relationships between these variables. It also applies fully modified and dynamic ordinary least square approaches. The study details the different interactions between the variables in each country. It uses an autoregressive distributed lag model to determine the long and short-run dynamics between renewable energy production and the three variables in each country. The paper shows there was a long-run elasticity between renewable energy and GDP in the developed countries and short-run dynamics between renewable energy and the other two variables. Whereas in the emerging countries category, there were long-run relationships between renewable energy and GDP, CO2 emissions, and oil price.