Driving Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030: Energy Consumption–Digital Economy Nexus and Sociopolitical Forces

This research examines the roles of clean (solar) and dirty (oil) energy consumption in Saudi Arabia’s economic growth, with particular emphasis on digital economy (DGE) development, while accounting for cyclical shocks in energy prices and the sociopolitical forces of legislative and people’s power. Using monthly data from January 2010 to December 2024, and employing partial cross‐quantilogram (PCQ) and time‐varying quantile causality (TV‐QC) approaches to address nonnormality and nonstationarity, the results reveal that clean energy consumption strongly supports digital economic development across slack to booming markets, whereas dirty energy consumption exhibits a positive effect only in extreme booming markets and an adverse effect elsewhere. Both energy sources play asymmetric, context‐dependent roles in aggregate economic growth regardless of market conditions. The negative cyclical shock to solar photovoltaic (PV) prices is more pronounced in monthly than annual periods across bull markets, while the opposite holds for oil price shocks. Turning to sociopolitical forces, legislative capacity shows mixed effects, whereas people’s power significantly drives DGE growth. Critically, both legislative and people’s power exert positive moderating effects when interacting with energy consumption, collectively spurring digital economic development across all market conditions. We recommend policies that optimize the use of both energy resources within a framework that integrates effective legislative regulation with genuine popular will to advance Saudi Arabia’s sustainable transition under Vision 2030.