economics of grid tied household solar panel systems versus grid only electricity abstract photovoltaic pv technology is available for purchase and use to provide households with electricity the objective of this research is to determine the economic consequences of installing microgeneration grid tied solar panel systems 4 kw 12 kw given alternative pricing structures for households at five locations with different solar radiation resources twenty years of hourly solar radiation and temperature data and hourly electricity use data for representative households were obtained for each location these data electricity pricing rate schedules and purchase prices and power output response functions for each solar panel system are used to address the objective the annual household electricity cost among the five locations ranges from 845 to 1128 for smart meter rates and from 870 to 1191 for traditional accumulation meter rates the estimated annual cost of 2148 for the least costly household grid tied 4 kw solar panel system with net metering is two times greater than the annual cost of purchasing from the grid if external consequences of electricity generation and distribution are ignored given region specific rate structures and prices household solar panel electricity generation systems are not economically competitive in the region studied a major finding is that the economic consequences of grid tied household solar systems differ substantially among locations that are relatively close in proximity

pro environmental households and energy efficiency in spain the residential building sector is a major driver of current and future energy consumption and associated emissions which can be potentially mitigated through significant energy efficiency ee improvements in both emerging and developed countries yet there are several persistent barriers that hinder the attainment of ee improvements in this area using data from a 2008 national representative survey of spanish households this paper is interested in the determinants of ee related decisions in particular a discrete choice model empirically analyzes whether pro environmental households are more likely to invest in ee and to adopt daily energy saving habits we show that households with eco friendly behaviors are more likely to investment in well differentiated ee measures as well as to steer daily habits towards energy savings however no effects are found for households with environmental attitudes based on stated willingness to pay to protect the environment in addition to this households belonging to higher income groups and education levels are more likely to invest in ee but not to adopt energy saving habits while households with older members are less likely to invest in ee and show fewer eco friendly habits

transport and low carbon fuel a study of public preferences in spain abstract transport is essential for the control of future greenhouse gas ghg emissions and thus a target for active policy intervention in the future yet social preferences for policies are likely to play an important role in this paper we first review the existing literature on preferences regarding low ghg car fuels but also covering policy instruments and strategies in this area we then present the results of a survey of spanish households aimed at measuring preferences for climate change policies we find a positive willingness to pay wtp in the form of higher car fuel prices for a policy to reduce ghg emissions through biofuels there is however significant heterogeneity in public preferences due to personal motivations accounted for via factor analysis of responses to attitudinal questions and to socio demographic variables

analysis of employment protection laws and unemployment benefits abtract this paper presents an empirical model that analyzes the relationship between employment protection legislation and unemployment benefits we emphasize the censoring and arbitrary weights problems and propose an alternative method that resolves both problems simultaneously

valuing the attributes of renewable energy investments increasing the proportion of power derived from renewable energy sources is becoming an increasingly important part of many countries s strategies to achieve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions however renewable energy investments can often have external costs and benefits which need to be taken into account if socially optimal investments are to be made this paper attempts to estimate the magnitude of these external costs and benefits for the case of renewable technologies in scotland a country which has set particularly ambitious targets for expanding renewable energy the external effects we consider are those on landscape quality wildlife and air quality we also consider the welfare implications of different investment strategies for employment and electricity prices the methodology used to do this is the choice experiment technique renewable technologies considered include hydro on shore and off shore wind power and biomass welfare changes for different combinations of impacts associated with different investment strategies are estimated we also test for differences in preferences towards these impacts between urban and rural communities and between high and low income households

global wind power development economics and policies abstract existing literature indicates that theoretically the earth s wind energy supply potential significantly exceeds global energy demand yet only 2 3 of global electricity demand is currently derived from wind power despite 27 annual growth in wind generating capacity over the last 17 years more than 95 of total current wind power capacity is installed in the developed countries plus china and india our analysis shows that the economic competitiveness of wind power varies at wider range across countries or locations a climate change damage cost of us 20 tco 2 imposed to fossil fuels would make onshore wind competitive to all fossil fuels for power generation however the same would not happen to offshore wind with few exceptions even if the damage cost is increased to us 100 tco 2 to overcome a large number of technical financial institutional market and other barriers to wind power many countries have employed various policy instruments including capital subsidies tax incentives tradable energy certificates feed in tariffs grid access guarantees and mandatory standards besides climate change mitigation policies such as the clean development mechanism have played a pivotal role in promoting wind power despite these policies intermittency the main technical constraint could remain as the major challenge to the future growth of wind power

assessment of public acceptance and willingness to pay for renewable energy sources in crete abstract the aim of this study is to analyse and to evaluate the citizens public acceptance and willingness to pay wtp for renewable energy sources res in crete for this purpose a contingent valuation study was conducted using a double bound dichotomous choice format to elicit people s wtp and factors affecting it residents of 1440 households all over crete were interviewed face to face major conclusions can be used as a basis for sustainable energy planning for policies and the formulation of awareness campaigns and for res investment programs and projects in order to prepare implementation conditions and enhance public acceptance of renewable energy investments and programmes mean wtp per household was found to be 16 33 to be paid quarterly as an additional charge on the electricity bill larger willingness to pay was reported by those with high family income and residence size those having a higher level of energy information and awareness concerning climatic change those who have invested in some energy saving measures and those who suffer from more electricity shortages than others

factors affecting drivers willingness to pay for biofuels the case of italy biofuels represent a promising alternative to substitute fossil fuels and given the relevance of environmental impacts of the transport sector policy initiatives worldwide aim at supporting the shift towards such cleaner energy source acknowledging the crucial role that biofuels will play in years to come in the energetic paradigm the study aims at investigating key determinants of drivers willingness to pay for biofuels focusing on a sample of 260 individuals from northern italy n 260 in line with recent research on consumer behavior socio demographics are not good predictors of drivers willingness to pay surprisingly on the other hand knowledge of the topic is negatively correlated to willingness to pay so that the more people know about biofuels the less they are willing to pay a premium price moreover certification is not an effective tool to convince drivers of the eco friendliness of biofuels hence spurring willingness to pay possible explanations of the research findings as well as policy implications are discussed in detail along with suggestions for future research on the topic

willingness to pay for voluntary climate action and its determinants field experimental evidence the determinants of individual voluntary climate action vca in combating climate change and its potential scale are frequently debated in public but largely underresearched we provide estimates of the willingness to individually reduce eu greenhouse gas emissions by one ton using the european union emissions trading scheme estimates are derived from an online field experiment with a large highly heterogenous and internet representative sample of voting aged germans jointly estimating willingness to pay wtp non indifference to vca and prior knowledge we uncover important determinants of preferences for vca such as education the information structure among the population and exogenous environmental conditions

public s willingness to pay a premium for bioethanol in korea a contingent valuation study abstract bioethanol be a renewable energy is well known to mitigate the greenhouse gas emissions compared with conventional gasoline thus the korean government is considering the introduction of a be mandate in which the legal blend is 5 be and 95 gasoline e5 until 2020 in order to expand be use we should examine the public acceptability of the introduction which incurs a rise in the fuel price this study attempts to assess the public s willingness to pay wtp a premium for introducing the e5 program in korea to this end a contingent valuation cv survey of 1000 randomly selected consumers was conducted in 2014 across the nation we used a one and one half bound dichotomous choice question in the cv survey and applied the spike model to handle the wtp data with zeros the mean wtp a premium for the e5 per liter is estimated to be krw 290 usd 0 27 which is statistically meaningful at the 1 level this value amounts to 15 6 of the gasoline retail price in 2014 krw 1856 or usd 1 70 and can be interpreted as the external benefit of be we can conclude that gasoline consumers in korea are ready to pay a significant premium for the e5

estimating willingness to pay from survey data an alternative pre test market evaluation procedure closed ended contingent valuation surveys are used to assess demands in hypothetical markets and recently have been applied widely to the valuation of non market environmental resources this int

on the competitiveness of grid tied residential photovoltaic generation systems in pakistan panacea or paradox abstract pakistan is experiencing a slow uptake of grid tied residential pv generation systems gtrpvgs despite of steep fall in pv module price higher solar irradiation and enactment of net metering by the government this slow uptake is attributed to the lack of awareness of four major stakeholders namely the house hold utility financier and the policy maker this paper presents a coherent framework that addresses the concerns of the stakeholders using four country specific parameters i e the local solar irradiation pv system costs borrowing and discount rates and electricity tariffs to compute npv irr payback period and levelized cost of electricity lcoe assuming net metering we model the economic payoffs on self consumption and sale of pv electricity at varying net metering rates system sizes load to generation profiles borrowing and discount rates findings suggest economic competitiveness of pv electricity with an irr and payback averaging around 28 and 5 years respectively moreover the lcoe is also found to be significantly lower than the retail rates the findings inform the household and financier on the economic yield utility on efficient tariff setting and government on sustainable policy design finally we argue that gtrpvgs bears huge potential for pakistan suffering from energy deficit unsustainable cost transmission losses and environmental hazards

heterogeneity in preferences for woody biomass energy in the us mountain west abstract millions of acres of public forest in the us mountain west are substantially degraded and are in need of restoration mechanized restoration treatments can improve forest health and reduce the likelihood of severe wildfire these treatments produce some timber and substantial amounts of forest residues that can be used to generate renewable energy and displace fossil fuels using the choice modeling method this study investigates social preferences for generation of energy with woody biomass produced by restoration treatments on public forests in the mountain west both multinomial logit and latent class logit lcl models are fit to the data and used to estimate marginal willingness to pay mwtp for increased amounts of woody biomass energy generation and important associated co benefits and costs positive and statistically significant mwtp is found for the number of homes powered with wood the extent of healthy forests avoiding increases in the number of large wildfires and local air quality significant heterogeneity was found in respondent preferences for the attributes the heterogeneity can be explained in part by sociodemographic and attitudinal characteristics of respondents the lcl revealed four classes of respondents with distinct preferences revealing conflicting viewpoints toward forest management for woody biomass energy generation

determinants of protest responses in environmental valuation a meta study abstract certain design characteristics of stated preference surveys are often linked to protest responses the dichotomous choice format for example is said to result in fewer protest responses however not much is known at present about the relationship between survey characteristics and the level of protesting only partial analysis comparing for instance the influence of different payment vehicles on protesting has been conducted to date this paper analyses the determinants of protest responses using 254 samples derived from 157 environmental valuation studies determinants include the elicitation format the payment vehicle the survey method and the geographical origin results of bivariate and multivariate analyses confirm some of the propositions presented in the literature such as a higher number of protesters when entrance fees are used as a payment vehicle however many of the characteristics included in the analysis do not significantly impact protesting another result is that reporting on identification and treatment of protest responses in subsequent analysis is inadequate in the majority of studies and would benefit from some standardisation

benefits of participating in contingent valuation mail surveys and their effects on respondent behavior a panel analysis abstract we investigated the fringe benefits of participating in contingent valuation mail surveys and their effects on respondents answers a two wave panel survey evaluating japan s anti global warming policies was conducted one sample was randomly assigned to either of two survey treatment groups with different survey loads factor analyses of answers distinguished the survey fringe benefit factor from the environmental concern factor the correlation between the two factors was smaller for the heavy load group than for the light load group estimations of structural equation models showed that survey participation became higher when the survey fringe benefit factor scored higher this tendency was found regardless of the survey load level structural equation models did not confirm a positive correlation between the survey fringe benefit factor and the consistency of wtp answers across survey waves however a logistic regression of the answers from the heavy load group revealed a positive correlation between the consistency of wtp answers and the level of perception of the survey as a good cause which was highly correlated to the fringe benefit factor in the previous factor analyses this positive relationship was not detected for the light load group

changing sunshine analyzing the dynamics of solar electricity policies in the global context abstract although solar costs have been dropping in recent years solar power is still more expensive than conventional and other renewable energy options and in most applications solar power still needs continuing government policy support however the need to achieve multiple objectives and ensure sufficient political support for solar power makes it difficult for policy makers to design an optimal solar power policy the dynamic and uncertain nature of the solar industry combined with the constraints imposed by broader economic political and social conditions further complicates the task of policy making in this paper we present a framework to critically analyze the objectives behind different country policies how factors such as macro economic conditions and development paradigms affect the policy outcomes and finally how these outcomes affect the overall cost reduction of solar energy we find that while the extent of cost reduction through creation of large demand remains to be seen it is essential for governments to provide adequate support for leapfrog rd d and exploit real comparative advantages across countries for effective solar cost reduction policy makers need to optimally design their policies by balancing national objectives and paying capacity with the global objective of solar power cost reduction in order to realize its full potential

predicting consumer demand responses to carbon labels abstract providing carbon footprint labels for all food products is a daunting and potentially infeasible project knowing how consumers substitute away from high carbon goods and what they choose as substitutes is essential for understanding which goods are likely to result in meaningful reductions in carbon emissions this paper proposes a model to systematically estimate how consumers will respond to information from a carbon footprint label our model uses consumers value of their individual carbon footprint with own and cross price elasticities of demand data on carbon emissions from life cycle analysis to simulate shifts in consumer demand for 42 food products and a non food composite and subsequent changes in carbon emissions from different labeling schemes our simulation results have several findings including 1 carbon labels can reduce emissions but labeling only some items could lead to perverse impacts where consumers substitute away from labeled goods to unlabeled goods with a higher carbon footprint 2 carbon labels can inform consumers such that their previous beliefs about carbon footprints matter and 3 carbon labels on alcohol and meat would achieve the largest decreases in carbon emissions among the 42 food products studied

willingness to pay for e85 from corn switchgrass and wood residues abstract willingness to pay wtp for e85 automotive fuel blend of 85 ethanol and 15 gasoline was estimated from a contingent choice exercise contained in a national survey of consumers the choice exercise included e85 blends from three different feedstock sources corn grain switchgrass and wood wastes and an e10 blend 10 ethanol and 90 gasoline with corn grain as the ethanol feedstock results from the study indicate willingness to pay a premium for e85 from switchgrass compared with e10 from corn concerns about land use for food versus fuel had a negative impact on wtp for e85 from corn grain while greater concerns about fuel security relative to the environment had a positive impact

consumer demand for green power and energy efficiency abstract this article examines reported willingness to pay for electric utility investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency resources using the results of deliberative polls conducted by electric utilities in texas 1 age education and salary tend to affect reported willingness to pay for utility investments in these resources intensive exposure to information about energy resource issues led to an increase in the number of respondents interested in paying a modest premium to support investments in both renewable energy resources and energy efficiency however average reported premiums actually declined following the polls as very high outlier responses moved to more reasonable values following the polls these results support the contention that informed dialogue about energy alternatives will result in broader interest in providing a modest level of support for these resources

public attitudes toward political and technological options for biofuels abstract this paper explores detailed public attitudes regarding the expanding range of biofuels technologies and policy options subjects from 34 in depth focus groups in central indiana were fairly knowledgeable about biofuels technologies but uninformed about biofuels policies despite being from a state where biofuels are a salient political issue a narrow majority was supportive of biofuels in general but expressed greater enthusiasm about second generation biofuels subject beliefs about biofuels economic and environmental impacts were most important in shaping these opinions rather than concerns about energy independence or other issues in terms of policy options subjects were most supportive of an alternative fuels standard and least supportive of a fixed subsidy and a cap and trade policy in contrast to arguments about technologies participants primarily framed their attitudes toward policies in terms of fairness although discussion did not substantially change aggregate preferences for most policies it did increase support significantly for at least one policy proposal a variable subsidy for ethanol it is particularly noteworthy that subjects generally did not support the most common biofuel technology corn based ethanol or the most prominent biofuels policy option the fixed subsidy despite residing in a state hosting a strong corn industry and staunch political advocates for both positions

are consumers concerned about palm oil evidence from a lab experiment abstract a lab experiment evaluates the consumers willingness to pay wtp for food products made with and without palm oil palm oil production induces environmental damages and its consumption presents a health risk however the production of alternative oils raises land use issues in the experiment successive messages emphasizing the characteristics of palm oil and palm oil free products are delivered to participants information has a significant influence on wtp when it underlines the negative impact of the related product this effect is stronger for the palm oil product than for the palm oil free product the experiment also compares the welfare effects of two regulatory instruments namely a consumer information campaign versus a per unit tax because of the respective attributes of both palm oil and palm oil free products the information campaign improves welfare with a much larger impact than the tax

using factor analysis to identify consumer preferences for the protection of a natural area in portugal abstract this paper focuses on the application of factor analysis so as to identify consumer preferences for the protection of a natural area we combine the use of factor analysis with the valuation data obtained by contingent valuation survey the survey conducted via in person questionnaires in 1997 is targeted at the economic valuation of the protection benefits of the parque natural alentejano e costa vicentina a natural protected area along the southwest coastline of portugal factor analysis results show that the consumer is characterized by a three factor motivational structure use warm glow and non use motivation factor respectively we introduce these motivation factors together with the respondent s socio economic characteristics in the economic valuation function of such natural protected area estimation results show that consumer motivation factors have an econometrically robust role therefore consumer motivations are interpreted as crucial information for accurate social cost benefit analysis of alternative protection scenarios and thus serve as an important cornerstone in designing an effective and broadly accepted management policy for the parque natural alentejano e costa vicentina

public support for reducing us reliance on fossil fuels investigating household willingness to pay for energy research and development abstract in order to reduce future dependence on foreign oil and emissions of co2 how much would us households be willing to pay annually to support increased energy research and development r d activities designed to replace fossil fuels does it matter whether the r d includes nuclear energy options we explore these questions using data from a unique set of national telephone and internet surveys using a national advisory referendum format the contingent valuation method is applied to estimate annual household willingness to pay wtp for us household support of a national energy research and development fund erdf for investments in energy sources not reliant on fossil fuels while accounting for the level of un certainty in voting responses the wtp modeling includes a comparison of both classic maximum likelihood estimation mle and bayesian analysis evidence indicates that mle and bayesian analysis achieve similar statistical inference while the bayesian analysis provides a narrower confidence interval around estimated wtp

policy uncertainties what investment choice for solar panel producers abstract solar power has achieved great development in the last decade and it should continue to play a central role in the face of climate change and sustainable development challenges this paper builds a real options model that provides a microeconomic analytical framework with the least squares monte carlo lsm method to assess the investment choices of a typical solar panel producer in china facing trade and domestic supply and demand side policy uncertainties it builds a baseline scenario and three policy scenarios with decreasing anti dumping and countervailing charges constant feed in tariff fit level and reduced investment cost a typical producer will have to make an investment decision on building a new production line in five years based on a decision impact analysis within 20 years the result shows an immediate investment decision for all scenarios the producer will have higher return from investment in building a solar power plant with a constant fit export is the optimal choice in other scenarios where investment return is lower after sensitivity analysis the paper concludes and can be used as a toolkit for solar panel producers and a reference for policy makers to evaluate the impact of policy uncertainties

renewable energy certificate mechanism in india a preliminary assessment abstract the indian national action plan for climate change napcc envisages several measures to address global climate change one of the important measures identified involves increasing the share of renewable energy in total electricity consumption in the country this would mean napcc envisages renewable energy to constitute approximately 15 of the energy mix of india by 2020 to achieve the target set by the napcc indian ministry of power launched renewable energy certificate rec mechanism in november 2010 however participation in the rec markets is low and recs have failed to attract significant investment so far in this study a preliminary attempt has been made to assess the performance of existing rec mechanism in india after highlighting the salient features of the indian renewable energy policy framework a brief description of renewable purchase obligation rpo and source specific rpos for different states is discussed along with an overview of rec market in india to date the performance of indian rec mechanism is evaluated by cost competiveness decentralized distributed generation and renewable energy portfolio diversity and their effectiveness has also been measured on the basis of the available data although it is difficult to make any conclusive remark on the success or failure of rec mechanism due to its short experience this study examines the process to date to come out with some recommendations which can be used to fine tune the functioning of existing rec market in india for instance rec price bounds should be revised because it has been not explicitly supporting cost competiveness by offering 60 33 higher average price than the existing average feed in tariff fit it is also observed that state wise contribution in registered capacity is skewed towards few states like tamil nadu 27 maharashtra 23 and uttar pradesh 22 which puts pressure on policy makers to restructure the existing rec mechanism

the economic case for low carbon development in rapidly growing developing world cities a case study of palembang indonesia where costs or risks are higher evidence is lacking or supporting institutions are less developed policymakers can struggle to make the case for low carbon investment this is especially the case in developing world cities where decision makers struggle to keep up with the pace and scale of change focusing on palembang in indonesia this paper considers the economic case for proactive investment in low carbon development we find that a rapidly growing industrial city in a developing country can reduce emissions by 24 1 in 2025 relative to business as usual levels with investments of usd405 6 million that would reduce energy expenditure in the city by usd436 8 million emissions from the regional grid could be reduced by 12 2 in 2025 relative to business as usual trends with investments of usd2 9 billion that would generate annual savings of usd175 million these estimates understate the savings from reduced expenditure on energy subsidies and energy infrastructure the compelling economic case for mainstreaming climate mitigation in this developing country city suggests that the constraints on climate action can be political and institutional rather than economic there is therefore a need for more effective energy governance to drive the transition to a low carbon economy

evaluation of property tax bonus to promote solar thermal systems in andalusia spain abstract this paper evaluates the effects of a property tax bonus to promote the installation of solar thermal energy systems in buildings in andalusia southern spain the propensity score matching methodology is used the treatment group consists of municipalities of andalusia that established property tax bonuses in their municipalities in 2010 the control group consists of municipalities that did not the response variable measures the number of new square meters of solar thermal systems installed in 2010 the analysis leads to the conclusion that municipalities that established a property tax bonus had installed on average 102 245 to 122 389 square meters more these results indicate that the percentage increase in squares meters installed in municipalities which adopted the tax bonus promotion ranged from 70 74 to 98 38 these percentages were lower for rural municipalities 49 00 to 77 06

public acceptance of biofuels abstract the public acceptance of biofuels in greece is examined in this work the analysis of 571 face to face interviews shows that 90 7 of the respondents believe that climatic changes are related to fossil fuel consumption while only 23 8 know the difference between biodiesel and bioethanol 76 1 believe that energy saving should precede the use of an alternative source of energy only 27 3 believe that priority must be given to biofuels over other renewable energy sources only 49 9 think that the use of biofuels can be an effective solution against climatic changes and 53 9 believe that the use of biofuels can be an effective solution for the energy problem finally 80 9 of the car owners are willing to use biofuels 44 8 are willing to pay the supplementary amount of 0 06 l of the fuel market price while the average amount reported as willing to pay was 0 079 l on top of the fuel market price furthermore eight models correlating the eight main responses with several socioeconomic variables are developed and analyzed those findings heave important policy implications related to the use and promotion of biofuels

an overview of afghanistan s trends toward renewable and sustainable energies relentless environmental concerns steep hike in fossil fuel price and increasing demand of non renewable fossil fuels consumption have dramatically increased global search for alternative energies the world requests ever growing energy supplies to sustain economic development and improvement renewable and sustainable energy ever more becoming accepted and established a decisive place in energy system of the word due to ecologicallyresponsiveinsight and a decrease in equipment expenses consistent with its endowment of energy resources each country tried to figure out its own energy portfolio and employing technologies which are economically viable and socially equitable and have minimal adverse impacts this article attempts to review all possible renewable energy sources as a substitute of the current energy profile coal natural gas and petroleum in afghanistan the study found afghanistan power sector as one of the least development sector which its inadequate status is preventing the development of the country as well eventhough the energy is not the only panacea but cost effective energies in abundant quantity and quality on sustainable foundation will help to reach to demand socio economic development the results indicate that afghanistan due to its natural and geographical situations enjoys important prospective for renewable energy bases such as solar wind geothermal and micro hydro power renewable energies could offer the ultimate solution for afghanistan in general and rural areas in actual but switch to altered forms of energy is grounded in multifaceted interations the study indicates number of issues such as great upfront charges absence of providers insufficient funding appliances and feebleindorsed and methodologicalcapability overwhelm and affected the use of renewable energies and technologies in afghanistan however with sufficient investment and practical stages by government andnongovernment agencies and the public encourage these unbound sources could play a vital role not only in afghanistan s energy supply but also in poverty reduction social and political stability and improving living standard

publics knowledge attitudes and behavioral toward the use of solar energy in yemen power sector abstract this paper presents the information of the public s views on the solar energy use in yemen it examines the public knowledge of attitudes and behavioral intentions that include the variables willingness to pay willingness to change and willingness to invest and then compare them a personal interview with 348 urban household and 258 rural household was performed the descriptive statistics chi square for independence odds ratios mann whitney and kruskal wallis tests were the statistical tools employed in the analysis the results showed that the citizens in both areas have a moderate level of knowledge about renewable energy resources the benefits and drawbacks of solar energy use in the power sector and the solar power technologies despite that they have highly positive attitudes towards the use of renewable energy particularly solar energy and its technologies they also accept to engage in the renewable energy activities which aim to improve the quality of the electrical service provided in the country the findings also indicate 66 55 7 and 78 4 of urban citizens are willing to pay to change and to invest compared to 70 55 4 and 75 6 of rural citizens the place of residence factor affected significantly the citizens knowledge level about renewable energy wind biomass and geothermal energy renewable energy resources the drawbacks of solar energy use in the power sector and the solar power technologies it also affected significantly the citizens attitudes towards the use of solar power technologies at home the implications for the policymakers are that elevating the knowledge and awareness of the citizens by formal and informal education and enacting effective supportive policies assists in encouraging the citizens to use renewable energies in their daily lives would lead to achieve the country s renewable energy targets for 2025

does ecological economics have a future contradiction and reinvention in the age of climate change abstract this paper addresses the role of neoclassical methodologies in ecological economics and the contradictions these methodologies pose to the field s critical founding principles we first consider robert costanza s treatment of nicholas stern s global deal and then survey climate change related articles published in this journal over the past five years this survey reveals how mainstream neoclassical methodologies dominate discourse and do so by marginalizing more critical political economy analyses this situation imperils the field s founding vision of a no growth steady state it also fails to address the related growth dynamics of capitalism without such a critical treatment the field s formal embrace of methodological pluralism actually entails an ideological empiricism that renders ecological economics theoretically incoherent this situation undermines the field s historical promise as an alternative economic paradigm ecological economics now faces a problematic future its survival in a form faithful to its founding vision will require an explicit choice to address its internal contradictions and reinvent itself in ways relevant to our contemporary context without such a choice ecological economics will likely succumb to an implicit acceptance of the hegemony of mainstream economic methodologies and their pro growth imperatives

role of renewable energy investment in india an alternative to co2 mitigation abstract this paper discusses the potential of renewable energy investment and co2 mitigation by renewable energy technologies currently india s per capita emissions are around one tonne of co2 year the present energy scene offers india a window of opportunity to invest in renewable energy the annual turnover of renewable energy industry has reached 12 3 billion in 2011 which is 36 higher than 2010 investment of 7 5 billion increasing the share of renewable energy in overall energy mix is an effective option to mitigate co2 emission presently the share of renewable energy is around 12 in the energy mix the present study estimated co2 mitigation potential of indian renewable energy sector about 203 million tonnes with an installed capacity of 24 gw in 2012 however enormous potential identified in renewable energy sector with favorable co2 mitigation the government is compromising with limited financial resources however policy efforts need to be strengthened to encourage a massive scale up of renewable technologies to build sustained low carbon economy

do environmental benefits matter evidence from a choice experiment among house owners in germany residential buildings strongly contribute to global co2 emissions due to the high energy demand for electricity and heating particularly in industrialised countries within the eu decentralised heat generation is of particular relevance for future climate policy as its emissions are not covered by the eu ets we conducted a choice experiment concerning energy retrofits for existing houses in germany in the experiment the approximately 400 sampled house owners could either choose a modern heating system or an improved thermal insulation for their home we used standard and mixed logit specifications to analyse the choice data we found environmental benefits to have a significant impact on choices of heating systems however they played no role in terms of insulation choices based on the estimated mixed logit model we further obtained willingness to pay wtp measures for co2 savings

using contingent valuation to explore willingness to pay for renewable energy a comparison of collective and voluntary payment vehicles abstract this study uses a split sample dichotomous choice contingent valuation survey of 1574 u s residents to explore willingness to pay wtp for renewable energy under collective and voluntary payment vehicles and under government and private provision of the good we also evaluate the impact of participation expectations on stated wtp we find some evidence that when confronted with a collective payment mechanism respondents state a somewhat higher wtp than when voluntary payment mechanisms are used similarly private provision of the good elicits a somewhat higher wtp than does government provision we also find that contingent valuation responses are strongly correlated with expectations for the wtp of others our results shed light on strategic response behavior and the incentive compatibility of different cv designs and offer practical insight into u s household preferences for how to support renewable energy

political affiliation and willingness to pay an examination of the nature of benefits and means of provision non market techniques are widely used for valuing environmental goods and services recent articles obtain results showing respondents to the right of the political spectrum are significantly less likely to vote in favour of environmental programs that provide public goods through public means in consequence their wtp is lower than that of individuals on the political left we examine whether wtp differs systematically in accordance with political affiliation by using data from three stated preference surveys we obtain results similar to the previous literature from only one survey our other two surveys employ different contexts that change the nature of the benefits from the good and or its provision mechanism the first of these finds no significant differences in wtp by respondent political affiliation and the second finds that respondents on the right of the political spectrum have statistically higher wtps for a good when it is privately provided than under collective provision our results provide further support that context matters and that preferences elicited from surveys for environmental goods are not necessarily independent of the means by which the good is provided

the effect of electricity consumption from renewable sources on countries economic growth levels evidence from advanced emerging and developing economies abstract this paper uses a sample of 36 countries for the time period 1990 2011 in order to examine the relationship between countries electricity consumption from renewable sources and gross domestic product gdp levels several nonparametric techniques are applied to investigate the effect of electricity consumption from several renewable sources including wind geothermal solar biomass and waste on countries gdp levels when investigating the whole sample ignoring countries economic development status the results reveal an increasing relationship up to a certain gdp level which after that point the effect of electricity consumption on gdp stabilises however when analyzing separately the emerging markets and developing economies and the advanced developed economies the results change significantly for the case of emerging market and developing economies the relationship appears to be highly nonlinear an m shape form indicating that on those countries the levels of electricity consumption from renewable sources will not result on higher gdp levels in contrast for the case of the advanced economies the results reveal an increasing nonlinear relationship indicating that higher electricity consumption levels from renewable sources results to higher gdp levels this finding is mainly attributed to the fact that in the advanced developed economies more terawatts from renewable sources are generated and consumed compared to the emerging market and developing economies which traditionally their economies rely on non renewable sources for power generation and consumption

do economic conditions affect public support for environmental policy abstract economic conditions are typically viewed as having an important influence on environmental policy in particular it is widely believed that under adverse economic conditions electorates and governments prioritize economic growth and jobs over costly ecological restraint the empirical evidence for this received wisdom however remains surprisingly contradictory we contribute to this debate by studying a case where the odds of the economy environment trade off claim holding true should be high an emerging economy in severe recession and environmental policy with high short term costs and long term benefits based on a representative survey n 2449 in brazil implemented in late 2015 early 2016 we examine how ego and socio tropic economic conditions both perceived and real affect citizens preferences concerning the mitigation of deforestation and climate change we find no robust evidence for an economy environment trade off the main policy implication is that from a public opinion perspective there is considerable room for ambitious environmental policy even under adverse economic conditions

breakthrough without subsidies pv business model experiments in the netherlands despite a lack of steady governmental support for pv in the netherlands over the last decade from 2008 onwards an increased number of initiatives started experimenting with new business models for pv though absolute numbers of installed capacity are still low this is a promising sign in this article we aim to contribute to the understanding of these developments by using insights from both business model and transition studies literature i e strategic niche management by performing a literature study and a series of interviews we found three main types of business models customer owned community shares and third party financial viability of these was found to be heavily dependent on net metering regulations which are surrounded by uncertainty and struggle about its meaning and application also the overall pv niche is maturing we found several local and national organizations lobbying for expansion of the space for pv business model experiments and enabling knowledge sharing and networking between initiatives furthermore a number of regime players is getting involved in the pv niche considering the current economic turndown and related subsidy cuts in many other countries we believe the netherlands with its relatively poor and unstable support system could serve as an example

estimating the co2 abatement cost substitute price of avoiding co2 emission spae by renewable energy s feed in tariff in selected countries abstract many renewable energy policies are looking into new incentives to absorb investments by targeting abating co 2 emission and fixing energy price fluctuation feed in tariff fit is a policy for rebating the amount of generated renewable electricity to investor fit is also defined as a co 2 mitigation policy in electricity generation from renewable sources this paper presents a cost benefit survey that estimates the real produced carbon dioxide for electricity generation in selected countries this study introduces the substitute price of avoiding co 2 emission as an indicator the new indicator shows how much is paid for avoiding co 2 by each selected countries through the fit policy for renewable technologies the amount calculated for solar energy is taken as a case in this paper the result confirms that the fit policy reasonably works for solar energy in absorbing investment however the fit policy claims a large portion of liquidity compared with other approaches hence makes this mechanism inept as a co 2 mitigation policy

paying for mitigation a multiple country study a contingent valuation study conducted in china sweden and the united states was used to investigate citizens willingness to pay wtp for reducing co2 emissions we find that a majority of the respondents in all three countries believe that the mean global temperature has increased over the last 100 years and that humans are responsible for the increase the share of americans that believes these statements is smaller and a relatively larger share of americans also believes that nothing can be done to stop climate change sweden has the highest wtp while china has the lowest jel q51 q54

us consumers willingness to pay for green electricity abstract we analyze us consumers demand for environmental attributes of deregulated residential electricity services using results from a survey designed to elicit consumers willingness to pay for such attributes and using results from a hedonic analysis of actual price premiums charged for green electricity in several deregulated markets survey results suggest that many population segments are willing to pay for decreased air emissions even if there is no alteration in fuel source furthermore several groups are willing to pay significantly more when emissions reductions stem from increased reliance upon renewable fuels the hedonic analysis suggests that several product features not considered in the survey help explain real price premiums including fuel mix from newly created renewable generation capacity green e certification brand name and state of offer while survey and hedonic results are not easily compared due to limitations of the survey both point to similar values for key environmental attributes though the survey results are likely to overstate actual willingness to pay in sum the results suggest that consumer driven purchases can in part support the future of renewable generation capacity in the united states though reliance upon other policy alternatives may be needed if energy prices spike

random preferences towards bioenergy environmental externalities a case study of woody biomass based electricity in the southern united states article i nfo this paper contrasts alternate methodological approaches of investigating public preferences the random parameter logit rpl where tastes and preferences of respondents are assumed to be heterogeneous and the conditional logit cl approach where tastes and preferences remain fixed for individuals we conducted a choice experiment to assess preferences for woody biomass based electricity in arkansas florida and virginia reduction of co2 emissions and improvement of forest habitat by decreasing risk of wildfires and pest outbreaks were presented to respondents as attributes of using green electricity the results indicate that heterogeneous preferences might be a better fit for assessing preferences for green electricity all levels of both attributes were positive contributors to welfare but they were no statistically significant respondents expressed a positive mean marginal willingness to pay wtp for each attribute level the total wtp for green electricity per kilowatt hour was 0 049 kwh or 40 5 per capita year 1 when converted into future total annual expenditures

economic analysis of flat plate solar collectors fpscs a solution to the unemployment problem in the city of eskisehir abstract this study performs a regional economic analysis of solar energy systems in eskisehir turkey that focuses on production and utilization of fpscs the data is obtained from a locally conducted survey and used for practical estimations both the survey findings and the theoretical predictions give close results and they sustain each other under the condition of free market considering profit maximization to produce 30 fpscs per day in optimum conditions 30 workers would be employed per shift if a company can meet the market demand 450 000 000 turkish liras tl 1 2 85tl with current prices of revenue will be earned from the production of 300 000 fpscs in 30 years are displayed on the other hand this renewable energy system has some costs however once it has been set up the system will produce many ecological advantages that more than offset its costs these effects benefit both the local region in which the system is established and the environment on a global scale in addition the process of collecting and utilizing solar energy can be used together with recycling systems to generate advantages for a local economy and can also benefit the global economy by solving unemployment problems by creating employment opportunities

economic guideline about financial utilization of flat plate solar collectors fpscs for the consumer segment in the city of eskisehir abstract solar energy systems yield energy savings relative to conventional systems by considering the ecological balance although it still has barriers the most commonly used system of this type is fpsc in turkey which produces hot water by absorbing solar energy through fpscs this study is a kind of guidance about utilization of fpscs in eskisehir that concentrates on a consumer segment the aim of the study is displaying the necessity of transition to renewable energy systems in the local free markets where the place of domestic resources the data is supplied from an original hand collected survey and turkish governmental institutions such as the central bank of the republic of turkey cbrt and the turkish statistical institute turkstat that is used for a possible scenario to show how these systems can become an extensive investment and financed in the city the most significant finding is purchasing a fpsc device which is a rational and profitable investment decision for households in the economic conditions of eskisehir this type of energy system has certain costs including installation credit and annual maintenance costs however after they have been set up fpsc systems yield many ecological advantages that more than offset the associated costs such as fuel savings over the long term and exemptions from tax payments that apply to other types of fuels these advantages benefit both the environment on a global scale and the region in which the system is constructed therefore the global and local economy can improve its structure by utilizing fpscs

elicitation formats and the wta wtp gap a study of climate neutral foods we conduct a field valuation experiment where we vary the valuation method contingent valuation vs inferred valuation as well as the payment format dichotomous choice vs payment card willingness to accept and willingness to pay valuations are elicited in a within subjects design for foods with climate neutral labels we find a similar gap for valuations elicited with the contingent or the inferred valuation method however we also find that the gap can be muted by using a payment card elicitation format

are new institutional economics enough promoting photovoltaics in india s agricultural sector solar photovoltaic pv technology can bring emissions free electricity to rural areas without access to the grid currently policymakers are seeking ways to expand markets for off grid pv from solar home systems to productive uses in order to enhance income generation and contribute to social development this paper explores the role of the state in promoting such market growth as a start the state must improve institutions thus echoing popular recommendations based in new institutional economic theory nie that are currently touted by the world bank and other large development agencies yet nie s framework may be insufficient because it fails to offer viable solutions to overcoming political barriers that contribute to technological path dependency a case study in punjab india where an agricultural pv water pumping program showed promising signs of successful market penetration in its first 3 years of operation illustrates how the nie s shortcomings manifest themselves in practice the program was beginning to penetrate market entry for pv pumps via competition between pv providers however the government of india achieved this feat by providing subsidies to wealthy farmers a move that is frowned upon by the nie school based on findings from the case study states should look beyond nie s framework to expand and improve pv markets in productive uses by accounting for political constraints assessing how pv technology can improve development goals and cultivating locally appropriate service delivery models

solar energy markets economics and policies abstract solar energy has experienced phenomenal growth in recent years due to both technological improvements resulting in cost reductions and government policies supportive of renewable energy development and utilization this study analyzes the technical economic and policy aspects of solar energy development and deployment while the cost of solar energy has declined rapidly in the recent past it still remains much higher than the cost of conventional energy technologies like other renewable energy technologies solar energy benefits from fiscal and regulatory incentives including tax credits and exemptions feed in tariff preferential interest rates renewable portfolio standards and voluntary green power programs in many countries the emerging carbon credit markets are expected to provide additional incentives to solar energy deployment however the scale of incentives provided by the existing carbon market instruments such as the clean development mechanism of the kyoto protocol is limited despite the huge technical potential the development and large scale deployment of solar energy technologies world wide still has to overcome a number of technical financial regulatory and institutional barriers the continuation of policy supports might be necessary for several decades to maintain and enhance the growth of solar energy in both developed and developing countries

renewable energy sources their global potential for the first half of the 21st century at a global level an integrated approach abstract the risk of human induced climate change and the volatility of world oil markets make non fossil fuel options important this paper investigates the potential for wind solar pv and biomass wsb to deliver energy the focus is on land opportunities and constraints and on production costs as a function of resource availability and depletion and of innovation dynamics the context is provided by the ipcc sres scenarios as simulated with the image 2 2 model we explicitly consider several sources of uncertainty aspects of the food vs energy trade off and the effects of interaction between the three options through their claims on land we show that potential production concepts are strongly dependent on the chosen land use scenario and should therefore be used with an indication of the underlying assumptions our results indicate a potential for liquid biofuels in the order of 75 300 ej year 1 and for electricity from wsb options at production costs below 10 kwh 1 of 200 300 pwh year 1 theoretically future electricity demand can be amply met from wsb sources in most regions by 2050 below 10 kwh 1 but major uncertainties are the degree to which land is actually available and the rate and extent at which specific investment costs can be reduced in some regions competition for land among the three wsb options may significantly reduce the total potential as estimated from simple addition which is another source of uncertainty

the regulation of labor author s botero juan djankov simeon la porta rafael lopez de silanes florencio shleifer andrei abstract we investigate the regulation of labor markets through employment collective relations and social security laws in 85 countries we find that the political power of the left is associated with more stringent labor regulations and more generous social security systems and that socialist french and scandinavian legal origin countries have sharply higher levels of labor regulation than do common law countries however the effects of legal origins are larger and explain more of the variation in regulations than those of politics heavier regulation of labor is associated with lower labor force participation and higher unemployment especially of the young these results are most naturally consistent with legal theories according to which countries have pervasive regulaory styles inherited from the transplantation of legal systems

incentives to promote solar thermal energy in spain abstract the growth in the use of renewable energies in spain has been remarkable among these energies is solar thermal energy however there are barriers which impede citizens from deciding to install the technologies that use this type of energy in their homes over recent years various measures have been adopted to enhance and promote the use of solar thermal energy these measures have been developed at all administrative levels central regional and local one of the most used measures has been the adoption of legislative regulations that force the use of this type of energy in construction another alternative route is promotion by means of incentives in three aspects tax incentives non refundable grants and favourable lines of finance however the measures applied have been found to be insufficient and alternative stimuli are needed

external benefits of waste to energy in korea a choice experiment study abstract the korean government has planned to expand a variety of waste to energy wte facilities in order to reduce waste disposal decrease the crude oil imports and mitigate greenhouse gases ghgs emissions one response to this concern is to measure the external benefits of wte to this end this study attempts to apply a choice experiment ce to four attributes or types of benefits such as the improvement of energy security reduction of ghg emissions job creation and extension of landfill life expectancy a survey of 500 households was undertaken in seoul korea the trade offs between price and the four attributes for selecting a preferred alternative are considered in the ce survey and a marginal willingness to pay mwtp estimate for each attribute is derived a nested logit nl model is employed in this study rather than a multi nomial logit mnl model since two specification tests indicate that the nl model outperforms the mnl model the estimation results for the nl model show that the mwtps for a 1 increase in energy security a 1 reduction in ghg emissions the creation of 10 000 new jobs and the doubling of landfill life expectancy as a result of expanding wte facilities is estimated to be krw 437 usd 4 5 1763 1 5 598 0 5 and 89 0 1 per household per month respectively the findings can provide policy makers with useful information for evaluating and planning wte policies and projects

job security provisions and employment european countries have enacted various job security provisions over the last 30 years employers are required to pay workers on separation or to give advance notice of termination in anything less than a perfectly functioning market there are effects of the provisions on employment incumbents are more likely to retain their jobs but new workers are less likely to be hired an examination of the european data suggests that severance pay requirements reduce employment

information and effort in contingent valuation surveys application to global climate change using national internet samples this contingent valuation study investigates the issues of information access and respondent effort and is based on a series of national internet samples the focus is on a split sample treatment basic information bi versus enhanced information ei in the latter significantly expanded information is provided about global climate change and the kyoto protocol using a referendum format we compare the treatment effect bi versus ei on willingness to pay wtp we develop measures of respondent effort in accessing optional information through the technology of web based surveys and jointly model effort and wtp using a simultaneous estimation approach results support the use of the joint modeling approach for objective measures of respondent effort and wtp respondent effort is shown to be positively and significantly related to wtp however use of the optional menu is rather modest counts of pages and time spent and is highly variable both across pages and respondents

monetized value of the environmental health and resource externalities of soy biodiesel abstract this study monetizes the life cycle environmental damage human health risk and resource depletion externalities associated with the production and use of biodiesel fuels from soybean feedstock applying a framework that couples life cycle damage measurements with social preferences elicited from a conjoint choice experiment allows for comparison of petrodiesel and biodiesel s external damages the results of the study reveal that production and consumption of soybean based biodiesels produce improvements in environmental health and resource impacts of 0 27 per gallon relative to petrodiesel for a 20 blend and 3 14 per gallon for a 100 blend

pollution tax heuristics an empirical study of willingness to pay higher gasoline taxes economists widely agree that in concept pollution taxes are the most cost effective means of reducing pollution with the advent of monitoring and enforcement technologies the case for pollution taxation is generally getting stronger on the merits despite widespread agreement among economists however pollution taxes remain unpopular especially in north america some oppose pollution taxes because of a suspicion that government would misspend the tax proceeds while others oppose pollution taxes because they would impose economic hardships upon certain individuals groups or industries and there is no pollution tax more pathologically hated as the gasoline tax this is unfortunate from an economic perspective as a gasoline tax is easy to implement and is a reasonable pigouvian tax scaling proportionately with the harms of consumption surprisingly there is a dearth of theory explaining this cleave between economists and virtually everybody else drawing on behavioralist literatures this paper introduces several theories as to why people and governments so vehemently oppose pollution taxes using the example of gasoline taxes we provide some empirical evidence for these theories we also show that revenue recycling the use of tax proceeds to reduce other taxes is an effective means of reducing opposition to gasoline taxes

a review of governmental support instruments channeling pv market growth in the flanders region of belgium 2006 2013 abstract how did a country in the middle of western europe starting almost from scratch reach the european top 3 in terms of solar pv capacity in five years and what were the costs we provide a systematic chronological review of the different governmental support instruments that drove the exponential growth of the solar energy market in the flanders region of belgium and calculate their relative contributions the results of the economic calculations show that green electricity certificates had by far the greatest effect on both the rise and stagnation of the market costing about 1 5 billion euro only for 2006 2013 the long term societal costs of such growth proved to be even higher 6 7 billion for 2014 2031 and unevenly distributed with residents paying the highest price via their energy bills companies continuously adapted their organizations to enact the available support instruments counter intuitively the substantial support shifted the attention of companies to the larger systems even though the incentive for investment in pv was lower than for the smaller systems

review of internalization of externalities and dynamics of atmospheric emissions in energy sector of baltic states abstract the existence of external costs can lead to market failure this is because the free market generally ignores the existence of external costs pollution taxes and other flexible market instruments are being applied to internalize external costs of atmospheric emissions subsidies to renewable energy technologies are also being applied to internalize positive external benefits of renewables as these technologies have lower life cycle emissions of classical pollutants and ghg emissions in comparison with fossil fuel based energy generation technologies the paper applies context mechanism outcome cmo theoretical framework based on realistic evaluation theory for review and assessment of the level of internalization of externalities and their impact on atmospheric emissions of classical pollutants in baltic states the paper aims to compare external costs of atmospheric pollution and pollution taxes and other measures to internalize externalities in baltic states and to relate them to the trends of emission of classical pollutants in these countries the external costs of atmospheric pollution were compared in baltic states together with atmospheric pollution taxes and other policy measures used to internalize external costs of atmospheric pollution in baltic states the analysis of trends of atmospheric pollution by classical pollutants in baltic states indicated positive trends since 2004 in all analysed countries though review of internalization of externalities in latvia indicated the lowest levels of external costs internalization in terms of pollution taxes excise taxes and feed in tariffs and subsidies from eu structural funds for renewables the atmospheric emission reduction trends for classical pollutants are very favourable in latvia except air pollution by ozone this indicates that the degree of internalization of external costs related to specific pollutants does not necessary imply emission reduction of these pollutants as other factors as well as country context also play very important role and further investigations of this problem are necessary

a discussion on recent developments in turkey s emerging solar power market abstract market reform energy security and environmental protection are three primary energy policy goals of turkish government although turkey s abundant solar energy resources can directly address the government s energy policy goals turkey has not utilized solar power yet utilization of country s huge solar energy potential would decrease dependence on imported fossil fuels and contribute to fulfill environmental commitments however lack of regulatory and financial support for the development of solar power has considerably delayed the utilization of country s huge solar potential the government has taken only modest steps to promote investment in solar power until the end of 2010 when a new feed in tariff policy was adapted turkey s solar energy potential pv technology status and prospect for concentrating solar power in turkey have been explored in a number of studies yet literature dealing with recent policy developments associated investment environment and opportunities for solar power investors are limited the aim of this paper is to set out the latest legal framework for investment in turkey s emerging solar power market and to provide some guidelines to potential investors who appreciated country s huge solar energy potential

rural versus urban preferences for renewable energy developments development of renewable energy resources such as wind farms and hydro electric schemes are being promoted as a new method of expanding and diversifying employment in rural areas however such energy projects are associated with a range of environmental impacts which might be detrimental to other economic activities such as those based on nature tourism the authors use a choice experiment to quantify peoples preferences over environmental and employment impacts that may result from the deployment of renewable energy projects in rural areas of scotland focussing in particular on any differences between the preferences of urban and rural dwellers and on heterogeneity within these groups rural and urban households are shown to have different welfare gains which are dependent on the type of renewable energy technology and on the scale of project under consideration

overcoming the barriers for biodiesel use in spain an analysis of the role of convenience and price abstract the aim of the paper is to analyse biodiesel market acceptance in spain in particular we study the intention to use biodiesel by spanish diesel car drivers and the factors explaining this intention to achieve this goal we developed a model of the intention to use biodiesel based on the theory of planned behaviour but extended in two ways the first one consists of the inclusion of two new predictors of the intention to use environmental self identity and biodiesel knowledge and the second the extension of the model to take into account the two barriers in the adoption of biodiesel in the market potential price premium and limited availability in the petrol stations this model has been specified as an ordered probit and estimated using data from a survey conducted in spain results indicated that apart from the attitudes towards biodiesel use the most important factors explaining the intention to use biodiesel are the biodiesel knowledge and the environmental self identity in other words the new predictors in the theory of planned behaviour model in addition the effects of all the factors attitudes subjective norms perceived behavioural control biodiesel knowledge environmental self identity and socio demographic characteristics on the intention to use were different depending on the price and the availability of the biodiesel in the market thus we can conclude that to analyse the intention to use biodiesel different price and availability scenarios should be taken into account empirical results indicated that to increase biodiesel use the best option is to increase biodiesel knowledge and environmental self identity

the merit order effect of czech photovoltaic plants abstract we assess the impact of photovoltaic power plants on the electricity supply curve in the czech republic the merit order effect is estimated as the elasticity of electricity spot price with respect to change in supply of electricity from renewable sources data for the czech electricity spot market from 2010 to 2015 are analyzed as this is the period with the steepest increase in a renewable generation capacity the effect is estimated separately for solar and other renewable sources we find a significant difference between these two groups our results show that based on hourly daily and weekly data energy produced by czech solar power plants does not decrease electricity spot price creating double cost to the end consumer however the merit order effect based on averaged daily and weekly data is shown to exist for other renewable sources excluding solar mainly water and wind this contributes to the conclusion that the czech renewables policy that prefers solar to other renewable sources may be considered as suboptimal

the joint design of unemployment insurance and employment protection a first pass unemployment insurance and employment protection are typically discussed and studied in isolation in this paper we argue that they are tightly linked and we focus on their joint optimal design in a simple model with risk averse workers risk neutral firms and random shocks to productivity we show that in the first best unemployment insurance comes with employment protection in the form of layoff taxes indeed optimality requires that layoff taxes be equal to unemployment benefits we then explore the implications of four broad categories of deviations from first best limits on insurance limits on layoff taxes ex post wage bargaining and ex ante heterogeneity of firms or workers we show how the design must be modified in each case finally we draw out the implications of our analysis for current policy debates and reform proposals from the financing of unemployment insurance to the respective roles of severance payments and unemployment benefits

valuing climate protection through willingness to pay for biomass ethanol abstract this study uses a multi part split sample contingent valuation method cvm and fair share fs survey to better understand the public s valuation of mitigating global climate change through its willingness to pay for biomass or cellulosic ethanol in addition to a basic cvm question a related scenario was developed that asked half of the survey respondents to state their fair share cost to lessen a potential food shortage in the next decade also through the expanded use of cellulosic ethanol three alternative biomass feedstocks were assessed farming residues forestry residues and paper mill wastes and municipal solid wastes overall a slightly larger proportion of respondents were wtp extra for cellulosic ethanol in the basic cvm scenario than in the fs scenario though no significant differences were found in the wtp for the different feedstocks bid curve lognormal regression results for the two models were similar supporting the idea that asking a fs rather than a conventional wtp question may be justifiable in some circumstances such as in cases of a national emergency

economic assessment of concentrated solar power technologies a review abstract this paper surveys economic assessments of concentrated solar power csp technologies and finds two dominant assessment methods a majority of studies reported in the literature are based on the levelized cost of electricity lcoe while a small subset of studies consider time varying meteorological and electricity market conditions several studies argue that lcoe undervalues dynamic flexibility provided by thermal energy storage and does not consider revenue opportunities provided by electricity markets at different time scales as a result some studies find that both lcoe and revenue can in fact be conflicting metrics for certain designs and market conditions this review finds strong variations in lcoe and revenue estimates in the literature as comparisons between csp and other generation technologies e g fossil wind and photovoltaic are dictated by the chosen economic metric it is imperative that policy and investment decisions should carefully consider time varying effects and flexibility finally research directions are proposed to increasing the fidelity of economic assessments and to mitigate discrepancies

promotion of biofuel consumption in the transport sector an eu 27 perspective abstract the european union s eu directive 2003 30 ec 1 set an objective of reaching a 5 75 share of renewable energy as a proportion of the total energy consumption of the transport sector by 2010 as all the member states mss of the eu 27 were obliged to comply with this directive different public policy measures were developed and implemented to promote the use of biofuels in transport biofuels being the main renewable energy source res in this sector in this article we review the public measures undertaken in the eu 27 and show how these measures primarily involve tax incentives and biofuel blending mandates on fuel sales all countries with the exception of finland introduced tax incentives of various types to promote the use of biofuels while 18 mss also implemented biofuel blending mandates through the passing of legislation relating to this matter

economic analysis of the contribution of photovoltaics to the decarbonization of the power sector abstract an analytical method has been developed for the calculation of the future 2013 2050 reduction of co2 emissions by the deployment of photovoltaic pv systems according to three scenarios from the international energy agency 2ds roadmap and new policies next we have also evaluated the financial extra costs incurred in the implementation of the pv systems which would replace the current traditional power generation systems taking as reference four geographical areas european union united states china and the world s average the established method also allows the comparison of the influence on the extra costs of the actual electricity mix as well as the current electricity prices corresponding to the above regional areas in these calculations we have taken into account several frequently ignored factors like solar cell degradation emissions attributed to the pv systems life cycle and the repowering due to the substitution of the systems after their life time is reached finally the results of this work can be of interest in energy planning policies related to the contribution of pv technologies for the decarbonization of the power generation system

power to change analysis of household participation in a renewable energy and energy efficiency programme in central australia the australian government funded a national solar city program 2008 2013 to support communities to increase adoption of energy efficiency measures and renewable energy technology one community was alice springs a town with about 9000 households in the geographic centre of australia the programme offered a package of support free energy audits discounts for the purchase of renewable energy technology and energy efficiency measures and ongoing information households that adopted solar hot water and photovoltaic systems reduced their electricity usage immediately after adoption by 10 and 34 respectively and this was maintained in the long term a small rebound effect of 15 was observed in the photovoltaic adopters it was observed that on average households that adopted only energy efficiency measures did not have a significant reduction in their electricity usage over the long term however consistent with expectations this study did show that there was a significant correlation between the number of energy efficiency measures adopted and the greatest household reduction in electricity usage these contrary results indicate that there are additional factors involved the connection between the effective use of measures coincident behavioural change or increased energy awareness and greater energy reduction is discussed

revisiting feed in tariffs in australia a review globally solar photovoltaic pv is rapidly becoming a key source of energy incentivised through the use of feed in tariffs fits solar pv is enjoying a similarly swift adoption in australia encouraged through fits this review builds on earlier work compiling and comparing fits in australia across its states and territories for residential small scale photovoltaic installations the purpose of this review is three fold 1 to synthesise a set of data on fit policy which can be used to inform future australia wide policy analysis 2 to understand the coevolution of policies to subsidise solar panel installation installation costs and installation numbers and 3 to employ this set of data on fit policy to examine whether fit policy corresponds with unintended adverse energy justice outcomes i e electricity disconnections from the grid the analysis presented in this review indicates that fit policies correspond to a greater number of electricity disconnections from the grid these findings are discussed in the context of broader debates

securitization of residential solar photovoltaic assets costs risks and uncertainty abstract limited access to low cost financing is an impediment to high velocity technological diffusion and high grid penetration of solar photovoltaic pv technology securitization of solar assets provides a potential solution to this problem this paper assesses the viability of solar asset backed securities abs as a lower cost financing mechanism and identifies policies that could facilitate implementation of securitization first traditional solar financing is examined to provide a baseline for cost comparisons next the securitization process is modeled the model enables identification of several junctures at which risk and uncertainty influence costs next parameter values are assigned and used to generate cost estimates results show that under reasonable assumptions securitization of solar power purchase agreements ppa can significantly reduce project financing costs suggesting that securitization is a viable mechanism for improving the financing of pv projects the clear impediment to the successful launch of a solar abs is measuring and understanding the riskiness of underlying assets this study identifies three classes of policy intervention that lower the cost of abs by reducing risk or by improving the measurement of risk i standardization of contracts and the contracting process ii improved access to contract and equipment performance data and iii geographic diversification

assessing the potential demand for biofuel by combining economics and psychology a focus on proximity applied to jatropha oil in africa abstract bio energy demand is known to be influenced by geographical origin and social equity this paper aims to highlight the influence of the proximity between biomass production and energy consumption on the demand for alternative bio fuels in the context of burkina faso we explore potential demand for jatropha oil jatropha curcas as a diesel substitute among engine owners survey data are based on a between groups design one group of respondents experiencing a local supply chain while the other a global one results show that proximity has a significant effect on potential demand itself and on the formation and strength of beliefs regarding jatropha oil in a local supply chain context the demand is superior and seems to be guided more by a certain economic and technical rationality conversely the prospect of a jatropha oil produced outside the village restrains demand and this latter is more determined by contextual factors and social interaction our analysis confirms that demand does not only depend on technical and economic factors such as price but also on the integration of the biomass production and processing in the socioeconomic life of local rural populations understanding demand construction and assessing underlying beliefs are key success factors for bio energy projects