support systems for the diffusion of renewable energy technologies an investor perspective concern over climate change impacts and the projected depletion of fossil fuels has urged more governments to adopt policies that stimulate the diffusion of renewable energy technologies ret with an increasingly diverse suite of support instruments the question emerges as to which instruments or combinations are able to achieve faster more substantial diffusion results although various support instruments were extensively addressed in policy studies there is still no consensus this is partly because many policy studies take a policy maker approach in comparing support instruments leaving relationships between policy design and policy results as a black box this paper proposes an investor oriented perspective to analyze the diffusion potential of support systems for ret the main argument is that it is not the type of support instrument but rather its risk profitability characteristics that influence investor behavior and the rate of diffusion the two instruments most frequently discussed and compared are the feed in tariff and the quota model the analysis in this paper concludes that policy design is crucial while often feed in tariffs are applauded and quota system feared feed in tariffs may also bring about disappointing diffusion results when poorly designed while quota systems may be also conceived as attractive instruments for independent power producers

european schemes for promoting renewables in liberalised markets abstract the paper describes possibilities and problems for penetration of supply systems based on renewable energy sources in liberalised markets the analysis is based on recent development in eu with different models for support of installations based on renewable energy these include feed in models with guaranteed minimum tariffs tender models for different bands of technologies and green certificates trading models with obligatory consumer quota the paper describes the market situation in selected european countries including germany the uk holland and denmark an eu directive from september 2001 has postponed the decision on a possible harmonisation of promotional models until at least 2005 in order to obtain more practical experience with the different support schemes a critical evaluation is given in this paper of the different models with proposals for a balanced development between environmental and trading concerns it is argued that too much emphasis is presently given to the side of free trade at the expense of long range planning for a sustainable energy development

investment and uncertainty with time to build evidence from entry into u s copper mining abstract the standard real options model predicts that increased uncertainty discourages investment when projects are large and take time to build however that prediction can be reversed we investigate the investment uncertainty relationship empirically using historical data on opening dates of new u s copper mines large irreversible projects with substantial construction lags both the timing of the decision to go forward and the price thresholds that trigger that decision are assessed in particular we build upon a reduced form analysis to construct a structural model of entry we find that in this market greater uncertainty encourages investment and lowers the price thresholds for many mines

rent and rent seeking in renewable energy support policies feed in tariff vs renewable portfolio standard abstract two popular policies for fostering electricity from renewable energy sources res e are fit feed in tariffs and rps renewable portfolio standards although it is essential for the government to intervene in the renewable energy market for a positive externality of res e poorly designed market regulations can lead to excess profits for the renewable energy sector which in turn increases policy costs in addition those who benefit from such regulations may actively seek rents this paper explores the rents or windfall profits generated through rps and fit and furthermore investigates which is more substantial for the case of south korea which has had experience with fit and rps over the past 10 years according to the results rents generated from rps were bigger than those from fit except for solar pv in south korea moreover this study also investigates the policy design elements that could curb these rents

a historical review of promotion strategies for electricity from renewable energy sources in eu countries abstract the core objective of this paper is to elaborate on historically implemented promotion strategies of renewable energy sources and the associated deployment within the european electricity market hence at a first glance the historic development of renewable energy sources in the electricity res e sector is addressed on member state and on sectoral level as well as consequently discussed according to available res e potentials and costs the specific focus of this paper are promotion strategies for res e options as they are the key driver of an efficient and effective res e deployment therefore the paper depicts the main types of different promotion schemes and their properties additionally several cases studies of different european member states show an in depth analysis of the different res e promotion schemes in this context special emphasises are put on the question of effective and efficient promotion scheme designs of different res e technologies generally conducted research led to the conclusion that technology specific financial support measures of res e performed much more effective and efficient than others did hence it is not all about the common question of feed in tariffs vs quota systems based on tradable green certificates but more about the design criteria of implemented res e support schemes

competitive auction mechanisms for the promotion renewable energy technologies the case of the 50 mw photovoltaics projects in cyprus abstract there are a range of policy frameworks and support mechanisms to promote the penetration of renewable energy technologies into the energy mix assembled by the governments and regulatory bodies around the world the three dominant and most common support schemes that have also been implemented within the eu and proven successful in the past include the competitive auctions the feed in tariff scheme fit and tradable green certificates tgcs this study reviews the use of the competitive auction mechanism for the promotion of power generation from renewable energy technologies the process of the specific policy instrument as well as its pros and cons are introduced successful and failed case studies from countries that have already incorporated this mechanism into their renewable energy technologies development policies are also presented among these cases is the cyprus auction procurement for the licensing of 50 mw of photovoltaic power plants conducted in january 2013 which is thoroughly elaborated in this paper the timeline of the bids is presented and the auction winner strategy is tracked and examined a discussion is also presented on the feasibility of the awarded projects eventually the entire auction procurement procedure is evaluated to expose the defects of the mechanism and to offer some recommendations for the viability of the process

returns to seniority in union and nonunion jobs a new look at the evidence in cross sectional data the positive association between seniority and earnings is typically much stronger for nonunion workers than for union workers a finding that seems inconsistent with the generalization that seniority is more important in the union sector than in the nonunion sector the authors of this paper show that standard estimates of the return to seniority are likely to be biased upward due to unmeasured worker heterogeneity job heterogeneity or both and they argue that this bias is likely to be larger in the nonunion sector than in the union sector when they correct for this problem in analyzing data on male blue collar workers for the years 1968 80 they find a larger return to seniority in the union sector than in the nonunion sector

the impact of different energy policy options on feedstock price and land demand for maize silage the case of biogas in lombardy abstract the growing demand of maize silage for biogas production in northern italy has triggered an intense debate concerning land rents maize prices and their possible negative consequences on important agri food chains the aim of this work is to quantify the extent to which the rapid spread of biogas raised the maize price at regional level increasing the demand of land for energy crops for this purpose we applied a partial equilibrium framework simulating the agricultural sector and the biogas industry in lombardy under two alternative schemes of subsidization policy results show that policy measures implemented in 2013 reducing the average subsidy per kwh may contribute to enforce the complementarity of the sector with agri food chains decreasing the competition between energy and non energy uses compared to the old scheme maize demand for biogas would decrease lessening the market clearing price as well as feed opportunity cost for livestock sector and reducing land demand for energy purposes

impact of renewables on electricity markets do support schemes matter abstract rising renewable shares influence electricity markets in several ways among others average market prices are reduced and price volatility increases therefore the missing money problem in energy only electricity markets is more likely to occur in systems with high renewable shares nevertheless renewables are supported in many countries due to their expected benefits the kind of support instrument can however influence the degree to which renewables influence the market while fixed feed in tariffs lead to higher market impacts more market oriented support schemes such as market premiums quota systems and capacity based payments decrease the extent to which markets are affected this paper analyzes the market impacts of different support schemes for this purpose a new module is added to an existing bottom up simulation model of the electricity market in addition different degrees of flexibility in the electricity system are considered a case study for germany is used to derive policy recommendations regarding the choice of support scheme

inequality of renewable energy generation across oecd countries a note abstract this study recommends the use of theil s second measure to investigate international renewable energy generation disparities this index permits disparities to be broken down within and between groups of countries in a reliable style an analysis of oecd countries for 1980 2011 shows some basic points first drop in renewable energy generation disparities is attributable both to within group and between group inequality components second between group inequalities are presently the key contributor to the inequality and further investigation on within group inequalities divulges the significant explanatory role played by north american european and asian and oceanian countries

towards a comprehensive policy for electricity from renewable energy an approach for policy design abstract energy policy design in europe is a complex issue involving multiple levels of governance and heavily influenced by institutional contexts however policy design in europe and model based analysis even more so is arguably shaped by the neo classical school of thought there is a need to provide a structured approach that would facilitate the incorporating of institutional contexts into renewable energy sources for electricity res e policy design and analysis this paper presents a formal approach to res e policy design based on design theory the institutional analysis and development iad framework and agent based modelling and simulation given a certain frame of analysis we propose that it is theoretically possible to identify the complete policy design space a set of design elements crucially this aspect potentially opens up to the policy analyst new avenues for intervention and allows her systematically explore given a range of uncertainties which element s of intervention is are the most vital to achieve the goals of the community its empirical applicability is demonstrated by representing and differentiating between six res e schemes from western europe in terms of the design elements a model based illustration demonstrates the value of this approach to quantitatively analyse the impact of design elements

public policies to support the development of renewable energy in romania a review abstract the aim of this study is to review the public policies used to support the development of renewable energy in romania over the past ten years romania assumed a target of 24 share of renewable energy in consumption in 2020 higher than the average target of the european union and this target has already been reached in the beginning of 2014 as a result of the public policies implemented therefore this study examines firstly the support schemes for the development of renewable energy in the european union underlining the arguments to support the renewable energy as well as the main barriers for its development secondly this study analyses the renewable energy sector in romania in terms of theoretical and economic potential production and consumption of renewable energy and legislation related to the renewable energy thirdly this study discloses the main issues of the public renewable energy policy in romania starting with an overview of the tradable green certificates system and revealing the changes of the romanian support scheme and the possible effects of the policy changes the results of the present study may be useful for further research regarding public policies for the development of renewable energy projects

patterns of attention to renewable energy in the british farming press from 1980 to 2013 abstract the farming sector is a major actor in developing renewable energy providing sites feedstock and investment media coverage can both drive and reflect levels of interest in renewable energy and affect policy support and farmer decision making about deployment this paper presents a content analysis of attention to renewable energy in the british farming press from 1980 to 2013 identifying the topics which sparked sustained media interest cycles of increased attention to specific types of renewable energy are made evident through quantification of article frequencies and qualitative analysis of content the findings contribute to the explanation of the role of information in the diffusion of renewable energy wind energy and liquid biofuels have received the most attention with multiple attention cycles whereas photovoltaics and anaerobic digestion have received focused attention only in recent years policy changes particularly support measures emerge as the most important driver of media attention although public controversies particularly in relation to wind energy lead to longer periods of attention attention typically increases when opportunities in renewable energy emerge and then quickly shifts to a longer stage of focused attention in which opportunities problems and solutions are explored and advice is offered before attention declines the media thus clearly play a role in informing farmers about opportunities arising in relation to renewable energy technology and policy developments but are less helpful in providing on going and consistent information about recurrent and more complex problems thus the farming press appears likely to have the strongest impact on early adopters of renewable technologies but is unlikely to contribute to diffusion at later stages when potential adopters are less willing to bear uncertainties

will policies to promote renewable electricity generation be effective evidence from panel stationarity and unit root tests for 115 countries abstract this study examines whether policies to promote renewable electricity generation are likely to be effective by applying panel unit root and stationarity tests to time series data on renewable electricity generation for 115 countries over the period 1980 2008 we find that for the panel as a whole and almost three quarters of the individual countries renewable electricity generation is characterized by a unit root this result implies that policies to promote renewable electricity generation such as renewable portfolio standards which result in annual increases in renewable energy and as such which represent permanent positive shocks to the long run growth path of renewable electricity generation will be more effective in increasing renewable electricity generation than policies with a pre specified time horizon

when households go solar determinants of uptake of a photovoltaic scheme and policy insights abstract the need to reduce dependence on fossil fuels has resulted in escalating interest in renewable energy generation yet few countries have seriously tested household potential to produce energy from pv panels propelled by mandatory eu targets for renewable energy and constrained with limited territory the government of malta launched a subsidy scheme with a view to encouraging pv installation by households the scheme reached the desired adoption levels within a very short period of time the study takes an entire country dimension to assess the determinants of household investment in pv panels a unique dataset is specifically constructed for this study we find that the prevalence of younger households higher incomes dwelling ownership and unshared roof space results in higher rates of uptake neither higher educational levels nor the participation in other environmental schemes recycling contribute any explanatory power to uptake of pv panels pro government sentiment captured by voting outcomes significantly and positively influences the take up of the grant and installation of pv panels we conclude by identifying some pointers for policy makers interested in harvesting the potential of households

responsive feed in tariff adjustment to dynamic technology development abstract this paper reviews the adjustments of the feed in tariffs for new solar photovoltaic pv installations in germany as pv system prices declined rapidly since 2009 the german government implemented automatic mechanisms to adjust the remuneration level for new installations in response to deployment volumes this paper develops an analytic model to simulate weekly installations of pv systems of up to 30 kw based on project profitability and project duration the model accurately replicates observed market developments and is used to assess different adjustment mechanisms against multiple scenarios for pv system price developments the analysis shows that responsive feed in tariff schemes with frequent tariff adjustments and short qualifying periods reach deployment targets most effectively

macroeconomic effects of the mortgage refinance and the home equity lines of credit abstract i examine how the mortgage refinance and the home equity lines of credit heloc impact the increase in pre crisis mortgage debt and post crisis mortgage defaults financially constrained homeowners can cash out funds through refinancing mortgages or extract home equity through heloc my quantitative exercise shows that prevalent usage of refinancing increases pre crisis mortgage debt which amplifies the post crisis foreclosure rate heloc also contributes to an increase in mortgage defaults though it negligibly impacts pre crisis mortgage debt

renewable energy policies in europe converging or diverging abstract nations today are urgently challenged with achieving a significant increase in the deployment of renewable energies in europe that need has given rise to a debate about the most effective and efficient support strategy whilst the different interests debate whether full european harmonisation or strengthening of national support policies for electricity from renewable energy sources res e is the best way forward individual national support schemes are rapidly evolving this study investigates how the eu member states have applied support policy types over the last decade by identifying predominant developments in the application of feed in tariffs premiums tradeable green certificates tax incentives investment grants and financing support for specific technologies wind biomass pv this study shows that europe is currently experiencing certain tendencies towards a bottom up convergence of how national policy makers design res e policy supports while some outliers remain the policy supports of most countries become more similar in the policy types applied dominance of feed in tariffs and in their scope of implementation differentiation for installation sizes and stacking of multiple instruments these trends in national decision making which show tendencies of convergence could make an eu driven top down harmonisation of support either dispensable or at least depending on the agreement less controversial

financial risks for green electricity investors and producers in a tradable green certificate market this paper analyzes financial risks in a market for tradable green certificates tgc from two perspectives existing renewable producers and potential investors in new renewable electricity generation capacity the equilibrium pricing mechanism for a consumer based tgc market is described and a market with wind turbines as the sole renewable technology is analyzed in this framework tgc prices and fluctuations in production from wind turbines will be negatively correlated and as a result tgc price fluctuations can actually help decrease the total financial risk based on this recognition analytical expressions for revenue variance minimizing trading strategies are derived and an analysis of the demand and supply for financial hedging is used to show that forward contracts will be traded at a risk premium

revisiting the techno economic analysis process for building mounted grid connected solar photovoltaic systems part two application part one in this two part paper identified monte carlo analysis as an improved approach over traditional deterministic techno economic methods for solar pv prosumers in deregulated markets in this

why is south korea s renewable energy policy failing a qualitative evaluation abstract this study explores the causes of the south korean government s failure to successfully deploy its renewable energy policy despite the south korean government s ongoing efforts since 2002 to promote the deployment of renewable energy the established deployment target has not been met and the share of renewable energy supply in total primary energy supply is poor compared to peer countries with a similar level of economic development therefore we attempt to find the causes of this policy failure using qualitative evaluation methods through the analyses conducted using focused interviews and secondary data we found that the domination of the fossil fuel and nuclear power industry s interests inconsistent policy shifts policy design that lacks sufficient support schemes poorly coordinated government activities and unsystemic and untimely monitoring and feedback have led to the failure of renewable energy deployment policies in south korea to overcome these problems we suggest that the south korean government should set more ambitious policy goals establish a new independent organization that focuses on energy policy issues use a varied policy mix and secure political support from diverse policy actors

the influence of spatial effects on wind power revenues under direct marketing rules abstract in many countries investments in renewable technologies have been accelerated by fixed feed in tariffs for electricity from renewable energy sources res while fixed tariffs accomplish this purpose they lack incentives to align the res production with price signals today the intermittency of most res increases the volatility of electricity prices and makes balancing supply and demand more complicated therefore support schemes for res have to be modified recently germany launched a scheme which gives wind power operators the monthly choice to either receive a fixed tariff or to risk a subsidized access to the wholesale electricity market this paper quantifies revenues of wind turbines under this new subsidy and analyzes whether when and where producers may profit we find that the position of the wind turbine within the country significantly influences revenues in terms of eur mwh the results are important for wind farm operators deciding whether electricity should be sold in the fixed feed in tariff or in the wholesale market however no location is persistently i e in every calendar month of the year above the average this limits the effect of the new subsidy scheme on investment locations and long term improvements in the aggregated wind feed in profile

categorization of residential electricity consumption as a basis for the assessment of the impacts of demand response actions abstract in a smart er grid context the existence of dynamic tariffs and bidirectional communications will simultaneously allow and require an active role from the end user concerning electricity management however the residential end user will not be always available to manage energy resources and decide based on price signals and preferences needs the best response actions to implement or the best usage of the electricity produced locally therefore energy management systems are required to monitor consumption generation storage and to make the best decisions according to input signals and the user s needs and preferences the design of adequate algorithms to be implemented in those systems require the prior characterization of domestic electricity demand and categorization of loads according to availability typical usage patterns working cycles and technical constraints automated demand response actions must be tailored and chosen according to this previous analysis of load characteristics in this paper a characterization of household electricity consumption is presented and an operational categorization of end use loads is proposed the existing potential for demand response to a diversified set of management actions is described and a tool to assess the impact of implementing several actions with different rates of penetration of energy management systems is presented the results obtained show the potential savings for the end user and expected changes in the load diagram with a decrease of the aggregated peak electricity demand and a smoothed valley

comparing the feed in tariff incentives for renewable electricity in ontario and germany the development of feed in tariff fit programs to support green electricity in ontario the green energy and green economy act of 2009 and germany the erneuerbare energien gesetz of 2000 is compared the two policies are highly comparable offering similar rates for most renewable electricity technologies major differences between the policies include the level of differentiation found in the german policy as well as the use of a price degression strategy for fit rates in germany compared to an escalation strategy in ontario the german renewable electricity portfolio is relatively balanced compared to ontario where wind power dominates the portfolio at the federal level canada does not yet have a policy similar to the european directive on renewable energy and this lack may impact decisions taken by manufacturers of renewable technologies who consider establishing operations in the province ontario s green energy and green economy act could be benefit from lessons in the german system especially with regard to degression of feed in tariff rates over time which could significantly reduce payments to producers over the course of a contract and in turn encourage greater competitiveness among renewable power providers in the future

renewable financial support systems and cost effectiveness abstract this paper analyses the performance of market based and feed in tariff systems of renewable energy procurement and comments on the impact of different procurement systems on investment in renewable energy the market based british renewables obligation ro is not more cost effective compared to the german feed in tariff although the nominal rates of payment per kwh of renewable energy are higher in germany this is more than offset by lower wind speeds in germany producing a lower return on investment compared to the uk a harmonised eu wide market based system would not improve cost effectiveness and may serve to reduce rather than increase local investment in renewable energy on the other hand nationally based green electricity certificate systems like the ro are not intrinsically biased against locally owned or co operative ventures systems are needed which encourage a diversity of investment in renewable energy from local as well as institutional sources

the use of real options approach in energy sector investments abstract energy shortage global warming and climate change led to an increase in the use of alternative sources of energy with renewable energy sources res playing a fundamental role in this new energetic paradigm however the investment costs often constitute a major barrier to their spread use moreover the overall benefits of renewable energy technologies are often not well understood and consequently they are often evaluated to be not as cost effective as traditional technologies from the moment that the energy sector started a deregulation process with a high level of competitiveness and associated increased market uncertainty traditional project evaluation techniques alone became insufficient to properly deal with these additional risk and uncertainty factors the diffusion of the renewable energy technologies is also affected by this feature the way investors evaluate their investments call now for the use of more sophisticated evaluation techniques real options approach can deal with these issues and as so began to be considered and applied for the energy sector decision aid this approach it is now extensively widespread in evaluating investment projects in the energy sector a large set of applications in almost all fields of energy decision making from electricity generation technologies appraisal to policy evaluation is available in the literature however the use of this technique in the field of res is still limited and worth to be analysed this paper addresses this issue a review of the current state of the art in the application of real options approach to investments in non renewable energy sources and res is presented giving perspectives for further research in this field