an analysis of feed in tariff remuneration models implications for renewable energy investment recent experience from around the world suggests that feed in tariffs fits are the most effective policy to encourage the rapid and sustained deployment of renewable energy there are several different ways to structure a fit policy each with its own strengths and weaknesses this paper presents an overview of seven different ways to structure the remuneration of a fit policy divided into two broad categories those in which remuneration is dependent on the electricity price and those that remain independent from it this paper examines the advantages and disadvantages of these different fit models and concludes with an analysis of these design options with a focus on their implications both for investors and for society

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

carrying capacity reconsidered from malthus population theory to cultural carrying capacity in this paper the concept of carrying capacity is investigated to provide an improved understanding about its contribution to solve environmental problems light is shed on its form interpretation and application in biology demography applied and human ecology the analysis begins with an examination of the bedrock of carrying capacity which is malthus population theory and its mathematical formulation the logistic growth equation the investigation shows malthus thinking to be both political and normative furthermore the rigid assumptions of the logistic equation and the uncertainty of its terms are found not to allow an unequivocal calculation and prediction of the upper limits carrying capacity of population growth it is illustrated that in ecology carrying capacity focuses on the quality of an ecosystem pressures on it and corresponding population numbers and less on equilibrium of populations as in biology it is shown that carrying capacity when applied in fields where human activity or human aims are involved is a complex normative concept influenced by ecological dynamics human values and aims institutional settings and management practices however it is demonstrated that the discussion about institutional settings aims and values does not take place as much as necessary for its useful application and operationalization in such fields instead authors fall back on sustainability environmental standards or resilience the main contribution of carrying capacity in applied and human ecology is as a political concept generally highlighting that exponential growth and thus environmental pressures have to be curbed carrying capacity is far from being a universal constraint operationalization will continue to be hampered as long as agreements are missing about which social carrying capacity is to be opted for and when it is considered to have been transgressed

planning of renewables schemes deliberative and fair decision making on landscape issues instead of reproachful accusations of non cooperation abstract the main issues related to successful implementation policies concern the socio economic institutions that are conditional to planning in the energy policy domain but also in the domain of spatial planning successful investments and the siting of renewable power plants eventually determine the success rate of national efforts in establishing renewable capacity central planning usually has several objectives and these often have a detrimental effect on the goal of renewable energy application current problems related to implementation decisions concerning wind power schemes are an example to those who will be faced by other renewable power plants notably biomass regarding community acceptance of wind power schemes the visual evaluation of the impact of wind power on the values of the landscape is by far the most dominant factor in explaining opposition or support type of landscape fully overshadows other attitudinal attributes as well as other visual and scenic factors such as the design of wind turbines and wind farms and the number and the size of turbines planning regimes and decision making practices that really enhance the implementation processes of renewable energy require strong ecological modernization this means institutional changes that create involvement and trust of actors at the actual implementation level local opposition cannot be explained by the egotistical motives of local residents when the inclination to behave according to supposed backyard motives is investigated the scale to measure this phenomenon appears to indicate commitment to equity issues and fairness of decision making hence for wind power local involvement to represent the local values of site specific landscapes is crucial for other renewables the source specific features are different but conflicts can be expected as well because the fairness of implementation decisions will be equally significant

barriers to energy efficiency a comparison across the german commercial and services sector abstract based on a large sample for the german commercial and services sector this paper econometrically assesses the relevance of various types of barriers to energy efficiency at the sectoral level and across fifteen sub sectors the results at the level of entire sectors suggest that the lack of information about energy consumption patterns and about energy efficiency measures lack of staff time priority setting within organizations and in particular the investor user dilemma are all relevant barriers allowing for sector specific differences in the relevance of these individual barriers yields a more heterogeneous picture the numbers and types of relevant barriers vary across sub sectors and the majority of sub sectors are subject to relatively few barriers the statistically most significant barriers are found for the sub sector of public administrations these findings are robust independent of whether the definition of an organization s energy efficiency performance includes only measures that have actually been realized or also those that are being planned for planned projects however organizations appear to underestimate internal priority setting as a barrier to energy efficiency

the innovation impact of the eu emission trading system findings of company case studies in the german power sector abstract this paper provides a detailed analysis of how the european emission trading system eu ets as the core climate policy instrument of the european union has impacted innovation towards this end we investigate the impact of the eu ets on research development and demonstration rd d adoption and organizational change in doing so we pay particular attention to the relative influences of context factors policy mix market factors and public acceptance and firm characteristics value chain position technology portfolio size and vision empirically our qualitative analysis is based on multiple case studies with 19 power generators technology providers and project developers in the german power sector which were conducted in 2008 09 we find that the innovation impact of the eu ets has remained limited so far because of the scheme s initial lack of stringency and predictability and the relatively greater importance of context factors additionally the impact varies significantly across technologies firms and innovation dimensions and is most pronounced for rd d on carbon capture technologies and organizational changes our analysis suggests that the eu ets on its own may not provide sufficient incentives for fundamental changes in corporate innovation activities at a level which ensures political long term targets can be achieved

exploring technology diffusion in emerging markets the role of public policy for wind energy abstract this study challenges the implicit assumption of homogeneity in national institutional contexts made in past studies of renewable energy policy we propose that institutional differences matter by focusing on several technology specific and generic policy factors that can foster technology diffusion through private sector activity more specifically we explore perceptions of early adopters in emerging economy contexts using wind park project developers as an example by applying a parsimonious method for our questionnaire as well as qualitative data we make several contributions methodologically we introduce maximum difference scaling to the energy policy domain empirically we identify several public influences on private investment and assess their relative importance this leads to new insights challenging findings from industrialized economies we identified additional institutional barriers to diffusion hence the requirement of a combination of technology specific and generic policy measures

least cost 100 renewable electricity scenarios in the australian national electricity market least cost options are presented for supplying the australian national electricity market nem with 100 renewable electricity using wind photovoltaics concentrating solar thermal cst with storage hydroelectricity and biofuelled gas turbines we use a genetic algorithm and an existing simulation tool to identify the lowest cost investment and operating scenarios of renewable technologies and locations for nem regional hourly demand and observed weather in 2010 using projected technology costs for 2030 these scenarios maintain the nem reliability standard limit hydroelectricity generation to available rainfall and limit bioenergy consumption the lowest cost scenarios are dominated by wind power with smaller contributions from photovoltaics and dispatchable generation cst hydro and gas turbines the annual cost of a simplied transmission network to balance supply and demand across nem regions is a small proportion of the annual cost of the generating system annual costs are compared with a scenario where fossil fuelled power stations in the nem today are replaced with modern fossil substitutes at projected 2030 costs and a carbon price is paid on all emissions at moderate carbon prices which appear required to address climate change 100 renewable electricity would be cheaper on an annual basis than the replacement scenario

undesired reinforcement of harmful self evident truths concerning the implementation of wind power abstract this viewpoint draws attention to a lingering simplistic and faulty interpretation of the complex phenomenon of acceptance of renewables and their implementation in concrete projects by all relevant actors namely the backyard theory during the last decade research that investigated nimby has provided support to disprove the two prime hypotheses proximity and decreasing property value the current mainstream trend in academic circles is clearly towards abandoning nimby explanations however in practice among developers and policymakers nimby thinking still prevails unfortunately there is also some academic writing that persists in recycling the backyard theory despite ample research to the contrary thus feeding this faulty interpretation of implementation problems a recent review of the state of the art of wind power implementation is taken as an example it presents nimby as a common sense self evident truth while to support this explanation it cites publications that actually refute this view and instead support the mainstream move towards abandoning nimby thinking this shift is important because further academic support for this concept would serve to hinder rapid deployment of wind power and also other renewables

public regulations and the slowdown in productivity growth a time series regression model of the us manufacturing sector is developed to estimate the direct and indirect relationships of public regulations and productivity for the 1973 to 1977 period preliminary results show that 12 to 21 of the productivity slowdown is blamed on regulation other contributing factors are a reduced non labor to labor input 15 average cyclical impact 0 to 15 and a combination of changes in labor composition expenses for research and development and shifts in sectoral output the study focuses on measured productivity and the results have little implication to true productivity growth 14 references 24 tables dck

eu renewable energy support policy faith or facts the recent eu commission proposal for promoting the supply of power from renewable energy sources was originally based on a pan european harmonised tradable green certificate tgc scheme we suggest on the basis of a multi disciplinary analysis that a pan eu tgc system is not the way forward for europe it is vital that the commission and the majority of member states avoids implementation of such policy designs put forward by a coalition of vested interests they should instead look at and act upon the available evidence from those countries that have experimented with tgcs e g flanders uk and sweden and design policies that stand a better chance of meeting the criteria of effectiveness efficiency and equity in particular the policies must enable eu to meet the immense innovation industrialisation challenge by inducing the development of a capital goods industry that can eventually diffuse a broad range of technologies that use renewable energy sources only then we can acquire an ability to implement an industrial revolution in the energy system in a way that broadly meets the criteria of effectiveness and dynamic efficiency

basic concepts for designing renewable electricity support aiming at a full scale transition by 2050 abstract renewable electricity supply is a crucial factor in the realization of a low carbon energy economy the understanding is growing that a full turn over of the electricity sectors by 2050 is an elementary condition for avoiding global average temperature increase beyond 2 c this article adopts such full transition as europe s target when designing renewable energy policy an immediate corollary is that phasing in unprecedented energy efficiency and renewable generation must be paralleled by phasing out non sustainable fossil fuel and nuclear power technologies the double phasing programme assigns novel meaning to nearby target settings for renewable power as share of total power consumption it requires organizing in the medium term eu wide markets for green power a highly demanding task in the present context of poorly functional markets in brown power the eu commission s 2007 2008 proposals of expanding tradable certificates markets were not based on solid analysis of past experiences and future necessities the keystone of sound policies on renewable electricity development is a detailed scientific differentiation and qualification of renewable electricity sources and technologies for measuring the huge diversity in the field we provide but structuring concepts about such qualification because implementation requires extensive research resources support for renewable electricity development is organized via feed in prices or premiums and via quota obligations connected to tradable green certificates green certificates are dependent on physical generated renewable power but separable and no joint products contrary to conventional wisdom we argue their separation in cost analysis but firm linking during trade a few graphs illustrate the importance of assigning qualities to different renewable power sources technologies feed in systems based on an acceptable qualification perform generally better than certificate markets imposing uniform approaches on a very diverse reality for a similar reason uniform and undifferentiated taxation of non sustainable energy sources cannot replace renewable energy support schemes capable of differentiation

regulation and growth why some countries grow faster than others is one of the most important questions in economics solving this puzzle has the obvious appeal of improving the living standards for a significant proportion of the world population we go further towards answering this question by studying a major determinant of growth regulations governing business activity our results also have significant implications for policy they suggest that countries should put priority on reforming their business regulations when designing growth policies measures of institutions currently used in the growth literature indicate the extent of problems but not how to resolve them by contrast the indicators in the doing business database are directly linked to specific reforms for example the procedures to register a business or property can be cut by combining them at a one stop shop for businesses establishing a credit bureau or reducing mandated severance pay for workers will also improve performance on the business regulations index our findings imply that identifying and implementing such reforms can accelerate economic growth

can renewables etc solve the greenhouse problem the negative case abstract virtually all current discussion of climate change and energy problems proceeds on the assumption that technical solutions are possible within basically affluent consumer societies there is however a substantial case that this assumption is mistaken this case derives from a consideration of the scale of the tasks and of the limits of non carbon energy sources focusing especially on the need for redundant capacity in winter the first line of argument is to do with the extremely high capital cost of the supply system that would be required and the second is to do with the problems set by the intermittency of renewable sources it is concluded that the general climate change and energy problem cannot be solved without large scale reductions in rates of economic production and consumption and therefore without transition to fundamentally different social structures and systems

understanding carbon lock in abstract this paper narrative argues that industrial economies have been locked into fossil fuel based energy systems through a process of technological and institutional co evolution driven by path dependent increasing returns to scale it is asserted that this condition termed carbon lock in creates persistent market and policy failures that can inhibit the diffusion of carbon saving technologies despite their apparent environmental and economic advantages the notion of a techno institutional complex is introduced to capture the idea that lock in occurs through combined interactions among technological systems and governing institutions while carbon lock in provides a conceptual basis for understanding macro level barriers to the diffusion of carbon saving technologies it also generates questions for standard economic modeling approaches that abstract away technological and institutional evolution in their elaboration the question of escaping carbon lock in is left for a future paper

nimby or not exploring the relevance of location and the politics of voiced opinions in renewable energy siting controversies local protests against renewable energy facilities have added fuel to the debate about the so called nimby not in my back yard effect this paper identifies six variables that can hamper the comparison between different public perception studies and offers two broad conclusions on aggregate proximity does have strong influence on public attitudes to proposed projects but the nature strength and spatial scale of this effect may vary according to local context and value of the land residents of stigmatised places are more likely to welcome facilities that are relatively green while people who derive a more positive sense of identity from particular rural landscapes are likely to resist such potential developments especially if they also live there secondly the fear of being branded a nimby and the positive ethics associated with the notion of renewable are both likely to colour the responses of many interviewees these aspects need to be clarified and accounted for in analyses of elicited responses both quantitative and qualitative if we are to improve our understanding of the social construction of individual attitudes in siting conflicts

energy for economic growth industrialization environment and natural resources living with just enough abstract this study investigates the causal relationship between energy consumption i e nuclear energy consumption electricity power consumption and fossil fuels energy consumption and economic growth energy consumption and industrialization i e industrial gdp beverages and cigarettes energy consumption and environmental degradation i e carbon dioxide emissions population density and water resources and finally energy consumption and resource depletion i e mineral depletion energy depletion natural depletion and net forest depletion in pakistan over a period of 1975 2011 the granger causality gc test in the frequency domain using the pierce framework has been employed this gc test in the frequency domain relies on a modified version of the coefficient of coherence which they estimate in a nonparametric fashion and for which they derive the distributional properties the results infer that there exists uni directional causality running from nuclear energy to industrial gdp nuclear energy to water resources and nuclear energy to carbon dioxide emissions but not vice versa similarly electric power consumption granger cause agriculture gdp but not other way around further there is a bi directional causality running between electric power consumption to population density in pakistan fossil fuel granger cause industrial gdp and there is a bidirectional causality running between fossil fuel and population density moreover the findings show that the nature of causality among nuclear energy consumption agriculture nuclear energy consumption population density electric power consumption cigarettes production fossil fuel cigarettes and fossil fuels and agriculture value added are in favour of the neutrality hypothesis in pakistan the conclusion has been strengthen and have a very strong implications in the context of pakistan where we have economic and financial constraints and thus agreeing the bottom line living with the just enough

the balassa samuelson hypothesis in estonia oil shale tradable goods regulated prices and other culprits this paper analyses the balassa samuelson b s framework for the case of estonia using a unique dataset that consists of a 15 sectoral breakdown of gdp and a five digit level cpi disaggregation with 260 items over the period from 1993 to 2002 unlike the existing literature the paper focuses on the following four aspects of the phenomenon a data disaggregation b definition of goods tradability c price regulatedness in services and d possible heterogeneity across transition countries it turns out that the first three aspects do matter and in addition to this estonia appears to bear very specific characteristics when compared with other transition countries a battery of cointegration techniques dols ardl johansen shows that productivity is strongly related to relative prices only when regulated prices are controlled for appropriately in the consumer price index and when country specific classification is applied to the open and closed sectors the b s effect contributed to cpi by 1 to 1 5 per cent at the outset of the period and by 0 4 to 0 6 per cent in 2002 whereas its potential long run impact is estimated to be 1 to 1 2 per cent although real appreciation due to the b s effect seems higher in the early 1990s it explains that better real appreciation occurred in recent years

the role of product market regulations in the process of structural change abstract the sectoral allocation of labor differs considerably across developed economies even in the presence of similar patterns of structural change a general equilibrium model that captures the stylized facts of structural change is presented in this framework economy wide product market regulations hinder the development of dynamic sectors such as service industries this is consistent with the negative cross country relationship between product market regulations and the service employment share discussed in the paper additionally the model suggests that higher service prices and rents in regulated economies reduce labor supply providing a rationale for the negative association between product market regulations and the employment rate previously found in the literature

can europe run on renewable energy a negative case the possibility of 100 renewable supply of european energy is analysed in terms of the amount of redundant plant required to cope with the intermittency of wind and solar energy and the limited biomass potential it is concluded that the capital cost would be unaffordable and that biomass resources are insufficient

some inconvenient theses there is a strong tendency for energy technologists and policy analysts to believe that energy demand can be met and associated problems including climate change can be solved and to focus attention on finding the best technologies to achieve these goals they tend not to be comfortable with any suggestion that there might be insurmountable limits and insoluble problems or that the problems they are working on require social solutions rather than technical solutions various contributions to this special edition provide illustrations this paper explores some challenges to the dominant promethian world view these include a consideration of the magnitude of the energy and other problems the possibility that renewable energy cannot solve them the significance of energy and of declining eroi for economic growth and the possible effects of rising resource input costs and unstable capital markets for energy investment finally the ultimate heresy is considered the possibility that access to abundant energy would not be good for us in summary it is suggested that coercive limits to growth are being encountered and that the resulting problems cannot be solved by action on the supply side but will require a radical rethinking of social goals systems and values

strategic choices for renewable energy investment conceptual framework and opportunities for further research this paper introduces the special issue on strategic choices for renewable energy investment which is a collection of best papers presented at an international research conference held in st gallen switzerland in february 2010 substantial private investment is needed if public policy objectives to increase the share of renewable energy and prevent dangerous anthropogenic climate change are to be achieved the aim of this paper and the entire special issue is to draw scholarly attention to the processes underlying strategic choices for renewable energy investment and how they are influenced by energy policy we disentangle the role of risk return perceptions portfolio effects and path dependence in explaining energy investment decisions and suggest that the heterogeneous universe of investors requires a segmentation of policies the paper outlines some of the rich opportunities for further research in this emerging area

tax incentives to promote green electricity an overview of eu 27 countries this paper provides a comprehensive overview of the main tax incentives used in the eu 27 member states mss to promote green electricity sixteen mss use tax incentives to promote green electricity simultaneously with other promotion measures especially quota obligations and price regulation however not all available technologies are promoted for example six mss germany romania slovak republic denmark sweden and poland have included an exemption on the payments of excise duties for electricity when the electricity is generated from renewable energy sources res this tax incentive is the most widely used limited tax incentives in personal income tax are available in belgium france czech republic and luxembourg in corporate tax tax incentives consist mainly of a deduction in the taxable profit belgium greece czech republic and spain lower tax rates in vat are applied in three mss france italy and portugal only spain and italy use effective tax incentives in property tax as a great diversity of tax incentives has been used to promote green electricity this adds another difficulty to the eu objective of providing a renewable energy policy framework but also it offers a useful set of case studies which can be used to inform eu policy development

social acceptance of renewable energy innovation an introduction to the concept this paper introduces the special issue on social acceptance of renewable energy innovation it is a collection of best papers presented at an international research conference held in tramelan switzerland in february 2006 while there are ambitious government targets to increase the share of renewable energy in many countries it is increasingly recognized that social acceptance may be a constraining factor in achieving this target this is particularly apparent in the case of wind energy which has become a subject of contested debates in several countries largely due to its visual impact on landscapes this paper introduces three dimensions of social acceptance namely socio political community and market acceptance factors influencing socio political and community acceptance are increasingly recognized as being important for understanding the apparent contradictions between general public support for renewable energy innovation and the difficult realization of specific projects the third dimension market acceptance has received less attention so far and provides opportunities for further research particularly from management scholars

does entry regulation hinder job creation evidence from the french retail industry are product market and entry regulation key sources of low employment growth in many european countries we investigate this question in the context of the french retail trade industry since 1974 approval by regional zoning boards has been required for the creation or extension of any large retain store in france we exploit a unique database that provides time and region specific variation in boards approval decisions we show that stronger deterrence of entry by the boards increased retailer concentration and slowed down employment growth in france

macroeconomic effects of regulation and deregulation in goods and labor markets product and labor market deregulation reduce and redistribute rents leading economic players to adjust to this new distribution it typically comes with distribution and dynamic effects to study these effects we build a macroeconomic model on two central assumptions monopolistic competition in the goods market which determines the size of rents and bargaining in the labor market which determines the distribution of rents product market regulation determines entry costs and the degree of competition labor market regulation determines the bargaining power of workers we show the effects of deregulation we then use our results to discuss the political economy of deregulation and recent macroeconomic evolutions in europe

design of an economically efficient feed in tariff structure for renewable energy development abstract evidence suggests albeit tentatively that feed in tariffs fits are more effective than alternative support schemes in promoting renewable energy technologies rets fits provide long term financial stability for investors in rets which at the prevailing market price of electricity are not currently cost efficient enough to compete with traditional fossil fuel technologies on the other hand if not properly designed fits can be economically inefficient as is widely regarded to have been the case under the public utility regulatory policies act of 1978 purpa under purpa too high a guaranteed price led to the creation of so called purpa machines poorly performing generating units that could survive financially only because of heavy subsidies that came at the expense of retail customers similarly because of their adverse impacts on retail electricity rates german fits have been subject to increasing political pressure from utilities and customers in this paper we propose an innovative two part fit consisting of both a capacity payment and a market based energy payment which can be used to meet the renewables policy goals of regulators our two part tariff design draws on the strengths of traditional fits relies on market mechanisms is easy to implement and avoids the problems caused by distorting wholesale energy markets through above market energy payments the approach is modeled on forward capacity market designs that have been recently implemented by several regional transmission organizations in the usa to address needs for new generating capacity to ensure system reliability

escaping carbon lock in this article explores the climate policy implications of the arguments made in understanding carbon lock in unruh 2000 which posited that industrial countries have become locked into fossil fuel based energy systems through path dependent processes driven by increasing returns to scale carbon lock in arises through technological organizational social and institutional co evolution culminating in what was termed as techno institutional complex tic in order to resolve the climate problem an escape from the lock in condition is required however due to the self referential nature of tic escape conditions are unlikely to be generated internally and it is argued here that exogenous forces are probably required

can australia run on renewable energy the negative case abstract the current discussion of climate change and energy problems is generally based on the assumption that technical solutions are possible and that the task is essentially to determine the most effective ways this view relies heavily on the expectation that renewable energy sources can be substituted for fossil fuels australia is more favourably situated regarding renewable sources than almost any other country this discussion attempts to estimate the investment cost that would be involved in deriving australia s total energy supply from renewable sources when provision is made for intermittency and plant redundancy it is concluded that the total investment cost is likely to be unaffordable

degrowth energy descent and low tech living potential pathways for increased resilience in times of crisis the use or misuse of advanced technology is a key factor driving global environmental degradation but advanced technology is also widely assumed to be the solution to many environmental problems in contrast to that dominant approach this paper outlines a variety of what the authors call low tech options such as solar shower bags washing lines alternative heating and cooling methods and cycling and raises questions about the extent to which these types of simple living practices could help increase household resilience in conditions of economic disruption instability or crisis the analysis is framed by an energy descent scenario in which an individual household or community either chooses a reduced energy way of life motivated by climate change mitigation or has such a way of life imposed upon them due to declining fossil fuel availability or economic disruption the authors see such a future as plausible and in some contexts has already arrived or has always been the case hence the relevance of this analysis which has both quantitative and qualitative dimensions furthermore while the focus herein is on low tech living at the household level it is argued that prefiguring a simpler way to live has deeper significance too in that it could help create the cultural conditions needed for a politics and macroeconomics of degrowth to emerge which the authors maintain is a necessary part of any decarbonisation project challenges facing low tech options are also acknowledged including the ever present risk of rebound effects and other indirect impacts

sustainable energy systems and company performance does the implementation of sustainable energy systems improve companies financial performance abstract the main aim of this paper is to analyse whether the adoption of sustainable energy systems improves corporate financial performance to this end we obtained data from a sample of 574 multinational companies from 36 countries in the 2008 2013 period on this data we implement a dynamic system panel data method our findings show that the adoption of sustainable energy systems allows firms to improve their short term corporate financial performance while not leading them to reduce their corporate financial performance in the long term specifically our results indicate that an increase in energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy sources do not significantly affect corporate financial performance neither does the integration of energy efficiency systems and renewable energy sources have any significant influence on corporate financial performance while the level of implementation of sustainable energy management systems has a significant effect on short term but not long term corporate financial performance furthermore other control variables such as research and development expenditure and year are also relevant in explaining firms financial performance the adoption of sustainable energy systems helps to improve corporate financial performance in the short term but has no affect in the long term this might be because the monitoring of energy efficiency using key performance indicators allows firms to detect and correct failures in the production process and hence improve short term financial performance however this measure does not generate competitive advantages for firms and therefore has no effect on long term corporate financial performance from a scientific perspective of energy this paper contributes to the literature by providing a detailed explanation of how the adoption of sustainable energy systems proposed by peura 2013 influences corporate financial performance on the basis of new empirical evidence these explanations provide a strong rationale for improving the efficient use of energy and harvesting low hanging fruits in the short term from a managerial perspective policymakers should encourage firms to align sustainable energy systems with their core business strategy by developing green technologies that allow them to acquire rare and valuable capabilities and abilities which generate competitive advantage and therefore allow firms to increase their long term corporate financial performance

interactions between the power and green certificate markets abstract the current trend of liberalising the power markets is combined with ambitious deployment plans for power production based on renewable energy supplies a new policy scheme to ensure this extension has been developed in the form of a green certificate system with a politically determined target of deployment in such a system producers of renewably based electricity receive tradable certificates in proportion to the electricity they produce the producer can thereby sell these certificates and receive additional revenue apart from the power price this paper studies the price and consumption effects of such a system with a simple model we show that the effects are ambiguous this ambiguity is caused by the interaction between the two markets therefore the green certificate system is difficult to manage if the state has parallel energy targets such as a desired deployment of renewably based energy and a stabilisation or reduction of the energy consumption in addition this complicates the regulation through a deployment target of renewably based power production as the regulator has to be aware of the different effects which follow a specific target until now these effects have not been considered in the analyses of the green certificate system when introducing the system even though it might have considerable consequences for the success of the system

accelerating the transition to sustainable energy systems abstract the slow pace of transition to sustainable energy systems is the result of several factors running in parallel the starting points are very low even 30 per annum increases in rated capacity for wind energy or solar pv for example take many years to make a big impact at the global level policy initiatives are for the most part ineffectual in relation to the urgency and scale of what is required and often fail to address the fundamental causes of this slow progress this reflects a top down approach often accompanied by unrealistic targets and simultaneously undermined by a lack of consistency across policies which reflect a utopian social engineering mentality made worse because the planner s response to failure of previous interventions is to do more intensive and comprehensive interventions as william easterly has put it in short there is little or no accountability this approach has failed to harness the sympathy imagination self interest or sound options of energy users although it may attract developers including those not hitherto noted for renewable energy projects or environmental concern targets are usually too short term and clearly unrealistic especially where fossil fuel use is rising very rapidly and renewable energy use expands modestly government subsidies for traditional energy forms continue insufficient attention is paid to what individuals might achieve in energy efficiency and renewable energy terms if permitted to have or retain in industrialized countries where the burden of taxation is often inhibiting the wherewithal to make the necessary investments subsidy systems often promote renewable energy schemes that are misdirected and buoyed up by grossly exaggerated claims one or two mature renewable energy technologies are pushed nationally with insufficient regard for their costs contribution to electricity generation transportation fuels needs or carbon emission avoidance investors are rewarded excessively under some national schemes for mature technologies that should not require support and that frequently do not make the contribution to renewable energy output or carbon emission avoidance they claim costs to business and domestic electricity consumers through the subsidy payments they make are much greater under some schemes than what other carbon abatement measures would cost higher cost less mature renewable energy technologies that have large potential for meeting global energy needs are not getting the support they warrant this is of grave concern given the minimum 30 50 year lead times required to make a large global contribution without departing from the sense of urgency required to address the pressing needs for sustainable energy systems it is imperative that the involvement of people at the grassroots level is harnessed and sound commercial and technical criteria are applied

identifying barriers to aboriginal renewable energy deployment in canada abstract as one of the largest and wealthiest countries in the world canada stands well positioned to take advantage of ongoing growth in north american demand for primary energy supply by expanding domestic delivery of renewable energy generation to internationally interconnected electric grids across the country there are myriad benefits of adopting the renewable energy approach to development as the province of ontario has acknowledged through the implementation of their 2009 green energy act including drastic reductions in carbon emissions the decommissioning of existing fossil fuel power generation that cause serious public health problems and opportunities for sustainable development at the community level one group in particular stands poised to shape these debates in canada historically marginalized aboriginal peoples remain one of the groups with the greatest potential for meeting these enormous renewable energy deployment needs aboriginal involvement in renewable energy generation in canada has been as diverse as canada s aboriginal peoples and groups have already adopted a range of different solutions to meet energy supply needs however many significant barriers exist that prevent this diverse cultural group from reaching its full potential the article identifies some of these shortcomings and analyzes their roots

analyzing manufacturers impact on green products market diffusion the case of electric vehicles abstract electric vehicles are often seen as a promising way for rationalizing the use of fossil energy in the automotive sector so far however their market success and thus their impact on reducing fossil fuel consumption are rather limited in this article the automotive market simulator amasi is applied to analyze the leverage of manufacturers to support the market diffusion of electric vehicles this is done by parameterizing the model for the german car market and simulating different product portfolio options regarding the timing of the introduction and the elimination of vehicle models an aggregated industry as well as an individual manufacturer s perspective is taken into account the results indicate that manufacturers portfolio decisions have a strong influence on the market development of electric vehicles and can be used to gain a competitive advantage thus manufacturers should proactively strive to shape the electric vehicle market instead of adopting a waiting position for policymakers these findings imply that instruments to steer manufacturers behavior are just as important as those targeted at consumers the paper broadens the discussion on the levers for the market diffusion of electric vehicles by providing a simulator to analyze manufacturers portfolio decisions in a competitive setting and by illustrating the necessity to include portfolio decisions when designing mechanisms to foster the market diffusion of electric vehicles

policies and market factors driving wind power development in the united states abstract in the united states there has been substantial recent growth in wind energy generating capacity with growth averaging 24 percent annually during the past five years about 1700 mw of wind energy capacity was installed in 2001 while another 410 mw became operational in 2002 during 2003 development activity has remained strong with an estimated 1600 mw of capacity installed with this growth an increasing number of states are experiencing investment in wind energy projects currently about half of all states host at least one wind power project this paper explores the key factors at play in the 12 states in which a substantial amount of wind energy capacity has been developed or planned some of the factors that are examined include policy drivers such as renewable portfolio standards rps federal and state financial incentives as well as market drivers such as consumer demand for green power natural gas price volatility and wholesale market rules

a new energy future for south africa the political ecology of south african renewable energy abstract renewable energy remains a contested topic in south africa this paper argues that south africa can build on the momentum surrounding its introduction of a feed in tariff by enacting policies that may if given adequate funding and political effort allow the country to be a world leader in renewable energy given a variety of renewable energy policy options for moving forward a majority of stakeholders consulted in this study strongly prefer the development of a renewable energy manufacturing cluster in which government develops coordinated policy mechanisms that attract renewable energy manufacturers over three other policies suggested by the authors interviews with key informants that play critical roles in this decision making process suggest that there are reasons to remain cautiously optimistic about the country s renewable energy future while cognizant of the challenges that must still be overcome opportunities for a low carbon renewable energy transition in south africa include the prevalence of broad stakeholder consultation facilitated by civil society and an innovative policy development context significant impediments also exist however and include pervasive social issues such as poverty and political inertia along with the ongoing difficulties facing renewable energy technologies in reaching grid parity with inexpensive and abundant south african coal

regulatory policy oecd experience and evidence in the past 20 years a key topic of public sector reform in oecd countries has been the emergence of regulatory policy during this period the nature of regulation has undergone profound and rapid change this paper reviews the development of regulatory policy in oecd countries over the last quarter century it identifies a range of tools and institutions that have been used by oecd countries to develop high quality regulation the analysis attempts to show that while there is considerable commonality on broad objectives of regulatory policy considerably diversity remains in the implementation of regulatory policy across oecd countries copyright 2006 oxford university press

is renewable energy effective in promoting growth abstract this paper applies panel data techniques to analyze the role of the various energy sources in economic growth for a set of 24 european countries 1990 2007 controlling for energy consumption and energy dependency the results suggest that the negative effect of the use of renewables supplants the positive effect of creating income by exploiting a natural resource locally and thus growth does not appear to improve with the change towards renewables the high costs of promoting renewables are probably being placed excessively upon the economy namely by increasing the costs of electricity tariffs thus inducing a deceleration in economic activity fossil fuels lead to dissimilar effects on growth while natural gas does not appear to be relevant in explaining growth coal hampers the capacity for growth whereas the use of oil stimulates that growth this is in line with productive structures that are deeply grounded in fossil fuels particularly oil

renewable energy costs potentials barriers conceptual issues renewable energy can become the major energy supply option in low carbon energy economies disruptive transformations in all energy systems are necessary for tapping widely available renewable energy resources organizing the energy transition from non sustainable to renewable energy is often described as the major challenge of the first half of the 21st century technological innovation the economy costs and prices and policies have to be aligned to achieve full renewable energy potentials and barriers impeding that growth need to be removed these issues are also covered by ipcc s special report on renewable energy and climate change to be completed in 2010 this article focuses on the interrelations among the drivers it clarifies definitions of costs and prices and of barriers after reviewing how the third and fourth assessment reports of ipcc cover mitigation potentials and commenting on definitions of renewable energy potentials in the literature we propose a consistent set of potentials of renewable energy supplies

a critical analysis of the 2014 ipcc report on capital cost of mitigation and of renewable energy abstract the report by the ipcc working group 3 on mitigation has been widely reported as showing that a 430 480 ppm emissions target can be achieved at a low investment cost in relation to gdp however there are several reasons why the report cannot be regarded as having established these claims mainly to do with the very few sources referred to on the crucial cost issues the problems evident in those sources and difficulties encountered when investment sums allocated to various sectors are examined an exploration of the possible investment required by the renewable energy sector indicates that the costs associated with achieving desired emissions targets would be very high this strengthens the case that effective policies for dealing with climate and other global problems cannot be achieved unless there is transition from consumer societies committed to affluence and growth

the politics of government decision making a theory of regulatory capture the paper develops an agency theoretic approach to interest group politics and shows the following 1 the organizational response to the possibility of regulatory agency politics is to reduce the stakes interest groups have in regulation 2 the threat of producer protection leads to low powered incentive schemes for regulated firms 3 consumer politics may induce uniform pricing by a multiproduct firm 4 an interest group has more power when its interest lies in inefficient rather than efficient regulation where inefficiency is measured by the degree of informational asymmetry between the regulated industry and the political principal congress

towards a common renewable future the system gmm approach to assess the convergence in renewable energy consumption of eu countries abstract this paper investigates whether the contribution of renewable energy sources to primary energy consumption is characterized by a convergence process across core european union eu countries over the period from 1990 to 2014 the system generalized method of moments gmm methodology is employed for 5 year span panel data of 14 eu members the findings indicate strong evidence for both the absolute unconditional and conditional convergence of renewables share in primary energy consumption across eu 14 countries moreover the control variables namely co2 emissions per gdp fdi inward stock and electricity prices contribute to the speed of convergence hence the implicit rate of conditional convergence is higher than that of absolute convergence the empirical evidence suggests that the energy mixes of core eu members have a tendency to become similar in the long run as the shares of res in primary energy consumption converge to the average level nonetheless it does not necessarily imply that this average would be 20 target which is to be achieved by 2020 according to eu directive 2009 28 ec

on the selection of financing instruments to push the development of new technologies application to clean energy technologies abstract achieving climate policy goals requires mobilizing public funds to bring still immature clean technologies to competitiveness and create new technological options the format of direct public support must be tailored to the characteristics of technologies addressed based on the experience accumulated with innovation programs we have identified those features of innovation that should directly condition the choice of direct support instruments these include the funding gap between the cost of innovation activities and the amount of private funds leveraged the ability of technologies targeted to compete for public funds in the market the probability that these technologies fail to reach the market and the type of entity best suited to conduct these activities clean innovation features are matched to those of direct support instruments to provide recommendations on the use to be made of each type of instrument given the large financing gap of most clean energy innovation projects public grants and contracts should finance a large part of clean pre deployment innovation however public loans equity investments prizes and tax credits or rebates can successfully support certain innovation processes at a lower public cost principles derived are applied to identify the instrument best suited to a case example

the massetti et al criticisms of trainer s critique of the 2014 ipcc report on renewable energy a reply by trainer abstract the criticism massetti et al 2017 make is essentially that my analysis of the 2014 ipcc report trainer 2017 is mistaken because it confuses the macroeconomic or reduction in gdp cost of mitigation which is focal in chapter 6 with the investment or capital cost which is considered in chapter 16 this claim is stated but no space is given to showing what the confusion is supposed to be or to explaining how it invalidates my analysis the following brief notes make clear that these two issues were not confused in my analysis and that the comments from massetti et al do not cast doubt on my critique of the ipcc report

the price of policy risk empirical insights from choice experiments with european photovoltaic project developers managing the transition to a renewable energy future is an important policy priority in many countries solar photovoltaic pv technology is expected to make an important contribution but due to relatively higher cost its growth to date has been largely driven by public policy notably feed in tariffs feed in tariffs have been implemented in various countries however with widely differing outcomes in terms of installed pv capacity previous research indicates that the level of policy risk may be an important driver for differences in renewable energy policy effectiveness more specifically we suggest that investors who take a decision between pv investment opportunities in different countries carefully weigh feed in tariff induced returns against a set of policy risks and choose the country with the most favorable risk return profile we empirically test this model based on a stated preference survey among european pv project developers consisting of 1575 choice decisions by 63 investors the findings of our study demonstrate that risk matters in pv policy design and that a price tag can be attached to specific policy risks such as the duration of administrative processes or uncertainty induced by an approaching capacity cap governments can build on our empirical results to design policies that will be effective in attracting private pv investment while at the same time maintaining efficiency by providing an adequate compensation for policy risk

an analysis of the world s environment and population dynamics with varying carrying capacity concerns and skepticism abstract because of the open access nature of the environment we consider an ad hoc adjustment of people s environmental footprint to the quality of the environment the adjustment is motivated by environmental concern but hindered by skepticism about announced changes in the state of the environment changes in the quality of the environment affect earth s carrying capacity by expanding the lotka volterra predator prey model to include these features we show that despite skepticism the environment does not deteriorate to a state in which humans cannot exist we also show that in the ideal case of no skepticism the interplay between the non optimally changing environmental concerns and carrying capacity leads the world s environment and human population to a unique interior steady state along an oscillating course these results require no further technological social or international progress

comparing the innovation effects of support schemes for renewable electricity technologies a function of innovation approach abstract the aim of this paper is to provide a comparative assessment of the innovation effects of instruments which support the diffusion of renewable electricity technologies with a functions oriented technological innovation system perspective the paper provides a link between two major streams of the literature the functions of innovation systems and the literature on renewable electricity support schemes we show that when a functional perspective is adopted feed in tariffs are likely to be superior to other policy instruments quotas with tradable green certificates and tendering although they still need to be complemented with other instruments most importantly direct r d support furthermore those innovation effects are affected by the specific design elements of the instruments chosen

what energy levels can the earth sustain abstract several official reports on future global primary energy production and use develop scenarios which suggest that the high energy growth rates of the 20th century will continue unabated until 2050 and even beyond in this paper we examine whether any combination of fossil nuclear and renewable energy sources can deliver such levels of primary energy around 1000 ej in 2050 we find that too much emphasis has been placed on whether or not reserves in the case of fossil and nuclear energy or technical potential in the case of renewable energy can support the levels of energy use forecast in contrast our analysis stresses the crucial importance of the interaction of technical potentials for annual production with environmental factors social political and economic concerns and limited time frames for implementation in heavily constraining the real energy options for the future together these constraints suggest that future energy consumption will be significantly lower than the present level

real exchange rates in small open oecd and transition economies comparing apples with oranges abstract we find that productivity gains in tradables cause an appreciation of the real exchange rate via both tradable and nontradable prices in the cee 5 and have no affect in the baltic countries while they lead to a depreciation of the real exchange rate of tradables in oecd economies that overcompensates the appreciation due to nontradable prices rising net foreign liabilities lead to a real appreciation in the baltic countries instead of the expected depreciation found in oecd and cee 5 countries these differences are due to the different impact of the fundamentals on the real exchange rate depending on the time horizon studied

malthus and climate change betting on a stable population abstract a standard assumption in integrated assessment models of climate change is that population and productivity are growing but at a decreasing rate we explore the significance of the assumption of population and productivity growth for greenhouse gas abatement after all there has been no long run slowdown in the growth of productivity over the past few centuries and the rate of population growth has actually been increasing for the past 19 centuries even if either of these growth rates were expected to slow by how much is subject to great uncertainty we show computationally that such continued growth greatly increases the severity of climate change indeed we find that climate change is a problem in large part caused by exogenous population and productivity growth rapid reductions in growth make climate change a small problem smaller reductions in growth imply climate change is a very serious problem indeed analogously reductions in the growth rate of population can be effective in controlling climate change

burden of proof a comprehensive review of the feasibility of 100 renewable electricity systems an effective response to climate change demands rapid replacement of fossil carbon energy sources this must occur concurrently with an ongoing rise in total global energy consumption while many modelled scenarios have been published claiming to show that a 100 renewable electricity system is achievable there is no empirical or historical evidence that demonstrates that such systems are in fact feasible of the studies published to date 24 have forecast regional national or global energy requirements at sufficient detail to be considered potentially credible we critically review these studies using four novel feasibility criteria for reliable electricity systems needed to meet electricity demand this century these criteria are 1 consistency with mainstream energy demand forecasts 2 simulating supply to meet demand reliably at hourly half hourly and five minute timescales with resilience to extreme climate events 3 identifying necessary transmission and distribution requirements and 4 maintaining the provision of essential ancillary services evaluated against these objective criteria none of the 24 studies provides convincing evidence that these basic feasibility criteria can be met of a maximum possible unweighted feasibility score of seven the highest score for any one study was four eight of 24 scenarios 33 provided no form of system simulation twelve 50 relied on unrealistic forecasts of energy demand while four studies 17 all regional articulated transmission requirements only two scenarios drawn from the same study addressed ancillary service requirements in addition to feasibility issues the heavy reliance on exploitation of hydroelectricity and biomass raises concerns regarding environmental sustainability and social justice strong empirical evidence of feasibility must be demonstrated for any study that attempts to construct or model a low carbon energy future based on any combination of low carbon technology on the basis of this review efforts to date seem to have substantially underestimated the challenge and delayed the identification and implementation of effective and comprehensive decarbonization pathways

dynamics and stagnation in the malthusian epoch this paper examines the central hypothesis of the influential malthusian theory according to which improvements in the technological environment during the pre industrial era had generated only temporary gains in income per capita eventually leading to a larger but not significantly richer population exploiting exogenous sources of cross country variations in land productivity and the level of technological advancement the analysis demonstrates that in accordance with the theory technological superiority and higher land productivity had significant positive effects on population density but insignificant effects on the standard of living during the time period 1 1500 ce

public policy influence on renewable energy investments a panel data study across oecd countries this paper examines the impact of public policy measures on renewable energy re investments in electricity generating capacity made by institutional investors using a novel combination of datasets and a longitudinal research design we investigate the influence of different policy measures in a sample of oecd countries to suggest an effective policy mix which could tackle failures in the market for clean energy the results call for technology specific policies which take into account actual market conditions and technology maturity to improve the conditions for institutional investments advisable policy instruments include economic and fiscal incentives such as feed in tariffs fit especially for less mature technologies additionally market based instruments such as greenhouse gas ghg emission trading systems for mature technologies should be included these policy measures directly impact the risk and return structure of re projects supplementing these with regulatory measures such as codes and standards e g rps and long term strategic planning could further strengthen the context for re investments

population technology and growth from malthusian stagnation to the demographic transition and beyond this paper develops a unied growth model that captures the historical evolution of population technology and output it encompasses theendogenous transitionbetween three regimes that have characterized economic development the economy evolves from amalthusianregime wheretechnologicalprogressis slow andpopulationgrowthprevents anysustainedriseinincomepercapita intoapost malthusianregime wheretechnological progress rises and population growth absorbs only part of output growth ultimately a demographic transition reverses the positive relationship between income and population growth andtheeconomyentersamoderngrowthregimewithreducedpopulationgrowth

examining dutch disease across australian regions the recent mining boom represents one of the largest external shocks to the australian economy in its post war history although most agree that it had a positive effect on the australian economy as well as on people s living standards there is disagreement over the extent to which this boom has caused deindustrialisation and the so called dutch disease in australia our empirical findings support the presence of dutch disease nationally for australia using data for the period 1984 2013 regionally the results show that dutch disease was concentrated mainly in the eastern and southern states of australia victoria queensland south australia and tasmania

population matters in ecological economics abstract it is an axiom of ecological economics that resource depletion and environmental pollution depend on the number of people and how many goods and services each consumes modified by the technological efficiency of production the paper reviews some studies quantifying the contribution of human numbers to environmental impact it warns against playing this factor off against that of high consumption in rich countries it asks whether from the environmental point of view complacency about either present or predicted population size is warranted the answer depends both on fertility and mortality assumptions and on constraints such as resource and food availability the concept of cultural carrying capacity would aid societies in determining their optimal population when account is taken not only of subsistence but of quality of life a population control toolkit for both rich and poor societies is sketched and some controversial coercive policy possibilities analysed

equilibrium exchange rates in transition economies taking stock of the issues in this paper we present an overview of a number of issues relating to the equilibrium exchange rates of transition economies of the former soviet bloc in particular we present a critical overview of the various methods available for calculating equilibrium exchange rates and discuss how useful they are likely to be for the transition economies amongst our findings is the result that the trend appreciation usually observed for the exchange rates of these economies is affected by factors other than the usual balassa samuelson effect such as the behaviour of the real exchange rate of the open sector and regulated prices we then consider three main sources of uncertainty relating to the implementation of an equilibrium exchange rate model namely differences in the theoretical underpinnings differences in the econometric estimation techniques and differences relating to the time series and cross sectional dimensions of the data the ensuing three dimensional space of real misalignments is probably a useful tool in determining the direction of a possible misalignment rather than its precise size copyright blackwell publishers ltd 2006

mobilizing private finance for low carbon innovation a systematic review of barriers and solutions this paper analyses the field of innovation studies regarding barriers to low carbon innovation and consequences for finance investment and divestment and contributes to a more holistic understanding of the underlying mechanisms a combination of technological barriers combined with economic barriers institutional and political barriers contribute to sub optimal low carbon investment all along the innovation cycle policy makers need to take a systemic approach to enable the redirection of diverse private financial sources instruments range from cutting dirty r d subsidies and support for clean technology innovation and diffusion levelling the institutional playing field and making risks of high carbon and low carbon technologies transparent to providing a consistent but adaptive long term transition strategy this would allow financiers to gradually shift their investments away from high carbon mainstream markets and scale low carbon technology niche markets however financiers also need to sharpen their competencies with regard to new clean technologies and markets

impact of public policy uncertainty on renewable energy investment wind power and the production tax credit abstract it is generally understood that the pattern of repeated expiration and short term renewal of the federal production tax credit ptc causes a boom bust cycle in wind power plant investment in the us this on off pattern is detrimental to the wind industry since ramp up and ramp down costs are high and players are deterred from making long term investments it is often assumed that the severe downturn in investment during off years implies that wind power is unviable without the ptc this assumption turns out to be unsubstantiated this paper demonstrates that it is not the absence of the ptc that causes the investment downturn during off years but rather the uncertainty over its return specifically it is the dynamic of power purchase agreement ppa negotiations in the face of ptc renewal uncertainty that drives investment volatility with contract negotiations prevalent in the renewable energy industry this finding suggests that reducing uncertainty is a crucial component of effective renewable energy policy the ptc as currently structured is not the only means existing or potential for encouraging wind power investment using data from a survey of energy professionals various policy instruments are compared in terms of their perceived stability for supporting long term investment

from malthus to sustainable energy theoretical orientations to reforming the energy sector abstract the main purpose of this article is to consider macro level theories for understanding the urge for reform as well as the process of societal change both in general terms and more specifically within the energy sector the aim is also to consider the energy sector in a wider context and analyse its recent development as a potential part of this reform the scope and logical framework of this article is the following the state of the global environment is approaching a point where the whole of humankind is in danger the article reviews and discusses humankind s limits of existence and dialectics of the human nature relationship by contrasting malthusian and boserupian theoretical views this creates both practical and scientific needs the long societal process of change is discussed according to the three layer 3l model of societal chance the production of energy has traditionally been one of the core issues concerning the effect humankind has on the environment and with regards to potential change related to it reforming the energy sector is in a key position this article reviews and discusses the way the already established renewal of the energy sector corresponds to the 3l model and the diverse potentials of the anticipated further progress

assessing the performance of the uk emissions trading scheme the uk s climate change programme introduced an emissions trading scheme ets for greenhouse gases firms in over 40 industrial sectors which have negotiated climate change agreements setting quantitative energy efficiency targets can use the ets to trade over and under compliance with these targets in parallel a limited number of firms have become major participants in the ets as a result of an auction of subsidies for additional abatement commitments the paper describes the uk arrangements and assesses the economic efficiency and environmental effectiveness of the ets drawing on evidence of participants behaviour both in the incentive auction and in subsequent trading

state renewable energy electricity policies an empirical evaluation of effectiveness over the past decade state governments have emerged as us energy policy leaders across the country states are adopting policy instruments aimed at carbon mitigation and renewable energy deployment one of the most prevalent and innovative policy instruments is a renewable portfolio standard rps which seeks to increase the share of renewable energy electrification in the electricity market this analysis evaluates the effectiveness of state energy programs with an empirical investigation of the linkage between state rps policy implementation and the percentage of renewable energy electricity generation across states we use a variant of a standard fixed effects model referred to as a fixed effects vector decomposition with state level data from 1998 to 2006 results indicate that rps implementation is not a significant predictor of the percentage of renewable energy generation out of the total generation mix yet for each additional year that a state has an rps policy they are found to increase the total amount of renewable energy generation these findings reveal a potentially significant shortcoming of rps policies political institutions natural resource endowments deregulation gross state product per capita electricity use per person electricity price and the presence of regional rps policies are also found to be significantly related to renewable energy deployment

levelling the playing field the influence of national wind power planning instruments on conflicts of interests in a swedish county slow and complicated wind power planning and permitting procedures have been a large obstacle for wind power diffusion in sweden and other countries this paper complements previous siting oriented literature with a planning perspective on these problems the focus is two national planning instruments implemented in sweden in the early 2000s a national planning target and an appointment of areas of national interest for wind power the paper identifies different types of conflicts of interest related to wind power in addition to the conflict between wind power as a national public interest and various local private interests and analyses the impact of the national planning instruments on the handling of these conflicts in the land use planning process in the county of ostergotland the analysis shows that the planning target actually made local planning officials even more inclined to treat wind power as a private rather than a public interest and that the method used to identify areas of national interest of wind power forced wind power to compete with the combined strengths of all other public interest the planning instruments thus left wind power to fight an uphill battle rather than to meet other interests face to face on a level playing field

the potential and economics of bioenergy in finland abstract this article summarises the results from four studies on the potential of bioenergy and one study on the economic feasibility of distributed renewable energy production in ostrobothnia finland the scope of the studies was to explore the degree of energy self sufficiency that could be achieved and the economic implications and benefits the results suggest that a great majority of rural areas have the potential for being self sufficient in their energy production through bioenergy alone but other renewable energy sources res including for example wind and solar power will make an even greater contribution in the future this applies to areas especially outside the largest population centres and most energy intensive industries indeed in peripheral regions the renewable energy potential far exceeds the energy demand and the spatial coverage of energy self sufficiency is huge other european and global studies also show tremendous res potential the economics of small scale power generation units here represented by biogas plants are already feasible despite the technology still being at an early developmental phase diffusion of these technologies depends on a number of factors but single and separate units are emerging all the time the adoption of res based energy management systems will however be a long social process the results give rise to an expectation for more res based energy generation in ostrobothnia and finland and even in europe and globally in a time frame of 20 30 years this development may result in structural changes across the whole energy sector this comprehensive movement can only be understood and supported by multi and cross scientific approaches and it will in future be a challenge for forthcoming research