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

regulation profitability and diffusion of photovoltaic grid connected systems a comparative analysis of germany and spain abstract although both germany and spain were pioneers in the support and adoption of photovoltaics pv through feed in tariffs fits germany is the world s leading country in terms of installed pv capacity per capita and remains on a path of pv growth while the spanish pv market is virtually paralysed we analyse the divergent performance in both countries by reviewing the evolution of fits and by analysing the profitability of different types of installations for the period 2004 2014 while in germany the policies profitability and diffusion of pv were relatively stable over time in spain erratic policy changes and the distortionary effect of the solar orchard ownership structure caused a diffusion bubble june 2007 september 2008 and a subsequent profitability bubble 2009 2011 these bubbles led to the collapse of the support system in 2012 revealing the difficulty inherent in designing innovation and diffusion policies in the context of high uncertainty and rapid technological change

feed in tariffs for promotion of energy storage technologies faster market integration of new energy technologies can be achieved by use of proper support mechanisms that will create favourable market conditions for such technologies the best examples of support mechanisms presented in the last two decades have been the various schemes for the promotion of renewable energy sources res in the eu the most successful supporting schemes are feed in tariffs which have significantly increased utilisation of renewable energy sources in germany spain portugal denmark and many other eu countries despite the successful feed in tariffs for res promotion in many cases res penetration is limited by power system requirements linked to the intermittency of res sources and technical capabilities of grids these problems can be solved by implementation of energy storage technologies like reversible or pumped hydro hydrogen batteries or any other technology that can be used for balancing or dump load in this paper feed in tariffs for various energy storage technologies are discussed along with a proposal for their application in more appropriate regions after successful application on islands and outermost regions energy storage tariffs should be also applied in mainland power systems increased use of energy storage could optimise existing assets on the market

a bibliometric analysis of research on carbon tax from 1989 to 2014 abstract as one of the most cost effective means of emission reduction carbon tax has attracted considerable attention from economists and international organizations and has led to a large number of related research using the bibliometric method this paper characterizes the carbon tax literature from 1989 to 2014 based on the network database platform of web of science the results indicate that the usa occupies a leading position in the carbon tax field the vrije university amsterdam massachusetts institute of technology and stanford university were the most productive research institutes energy policy 143 has been the most productive journal followed by energy economics 44 and energy 38 in general the cooperation of authors institutes and nations are continuing to strengthen however the growth rate at the author level was significantly higher than the others in addition the current key research areas in the carbon tax field based on co keyword analysis are as follows climate change and relevant policy carbon emissions trading socio economic effects of carbon tax renewable energy endogenous technological change and carbon capture and storage the results of this paper will help researchers grasp the current research in the carbon tax field but also provide a supporting role for future work

disentangling the migration trade nexus the pro trade effects of immigrants and emigrants in the presence of vertical and horizontal product differentiation this paper presents an exploration of the migration trade nexus taking the case of italy by crossing the two dimensions of migration immigration and emigration and the two dimensions of intra ind

feed in tariffs with minimum price guarantees and regulatory uncertainty abstract the feed in tariff fit program is a popular policy for incentivizing new renewable energy projects because it establishes a long term contract with renewable energy investors this paper presents a novel model to analyze a fit contract with a minimum price guarantee i e a price floor regime from an investor s perspective the results show that a perpetual guarantee only induces investment for prices below the price floor when offering a risk free investment opportunity in contrast the finite guarantee may induce investment even when the revenue from the guarantee is lower than the investment cost when an investor faces a scenario with regulatory uncertainty a higher and more likely reduction in the price floor induces earlier investment for all cases investors postpone an investment decision when market conditions present a higher price volatility

financial incentives to mobilise local citizens as investors in low carbon technologies a systematic literature review abstract mobilising greater levels of private finance through local citizen investment in low carbon technologies can help bridge the capital shortfall to meeting climate objectives while also building societal support for the low carbon transition within this context we undertake a systematic review of literature assessing the impact of technology specific economic and financial incentives promoting greater levels of investment in low carbon technologies from local citizen investors both individuals and community groups we focus in particular on the impact of feed in tariffs compared to quota schemes grants tax incentives and soft loans the analysis suggests that local citizen investors do not necessarily act in an economically rational manner in response to these incentives it underscores the importance of understanding the preferences of target demographics the local context as well as the characteristics of the technologies in question and suggests interventions should be considered as part of wider policy packages while identifying challenges to be overcome through instrument design we find that feed in tariffs grants and tax incentives can be successful in mobilising greater levels of investment from local citizen investors but that soft loans tend to be less effective as a stand alone instrument the review identifies areas meriting further exploration in this emerging field of research

modeling the long run drivers of total renewable energy consumption evidence from top five heavily polluted countries abstract a boom in renewable energy consumption as a percentage of final energy consumption rec has a significant impact on cleaner production and environmental sustainability however studies on rec as for an individual country case and panel case approach for top emitters are rare against this backdrop this study investigates the long run drivers of rec by using a time series data from 1990 to 2015 the fmols grouped results indicate that economic growth and trade openness increase rec whereas population growth has a negative but significant impact on rec to check for causal links the innovating accounting approach using variance decomposition analysis is applied the results show that there is a unidirectional causality running from economic growth trade openness and population growth to rec further the predictive accuracy of the fmols based econometric output and the bi directional long short term memory bi lstm is analyzed the bi lstm formulated algorithm outperformed the econometric output the bi lstm is utilized to forecast rec to the year 2030 the output from the bi lstm shows that china the us india the russian federation s and japan s rec will hit 11 3395 11 1245 34 6969 2 9097 and 7 4859 respectively the us and japan s rec levels will increase while that of china india and russia federation will decrease as a policy implication new policy directives for china india and the russian federation are required to boost rec levels

horizontal and vertical intra industry trade an empirical test of the homogeneity hypothesis in this paper we study if and how country specific factors affect intra industry trade iit when heterogeneity among sectors is allowed for the paper is novel in that it is the first that addresses an issue raised by greenaway et al oxford bulletin of economics and statistics 1999 61 365 specifically employing data on a sample of oecd countries over a 10 year period 1997 1998 we build on and take forward a methodology pioneered by balassa and bauwens economic journal 1987 97 923 to study the determinants of horizontal and vertical iit using a multi industry approach in doing this we seek to avoid the more extreme measurement problems by allowing for heterogeneity among sectors when country specific factors are analysed and among countries when industry specific factors are considered the results are compared to those obtained using the traditional method that does not consider intersectoral heterogeneity we find that the two models yield statistically different results moreover the tests regarding the choice of model that is econometric tests designed to compare one model with another when different sets of explanatory variables are used confirm the relevance of intersectoral heterogeneity in affecting iit to the best of our knowledge a similar analysis has not yet appeared in the empirical literature on iit

an analysis of bilateral intra industry trade in the food processing sector this paper analyses determinants of intra industry trade in food processing for a 30 country sample over the period 1964 85 previous studies have tested the hypothesis that imperfect competition is a major determinant of intra industry trade iit in the durable goods manufacturing sectors this study is distinguised from the earlier studies of iit by the examination of the processed food sector sic 20 the use of a panel data set for 22 years and 30 countries available at the four digit sic level the use of purchasing power parity measures of gdp and the use of a weighted tobit model with fixed effects to account for the censored cross section time series nature of the date the results indicate that iti in food processing is a positive function of a country s gdp per capita and equality if gdp per capita between countries in addition it is also found that such trade is strongly influenced by distance between trading partners membership in customs unions and free trade blocs and also exchange r

supplementing an emissions tax by a feed in tariff for renewable electricity to address learning spillovers abstract in the presence of learning spillovers related to renewable energy technologies an optimal strategy to mitigate climate change should complement an emissions tax by a subsidy for renewables this article addresses the question how such subsidy should be designed it is shown that the widely used approach of a revenue neutral fixed feed in tariff can yield an optimal outcome under restrictive conditions only it has to be adapted continuously as the electricity price changes moreover funding the tariff by a surcharge on the electricity price has important implications for the design of the emission tax the optimal tax rate has to be below the pigovian level differentiated across fossil fuels and adapted over time as the patterns of technological development change these requirements may pose a formidable challenge for practical decision making however it is important to point out that the eventual choices made with respect to the design and funding of a feed in tariff have to be based on a careful and more comprehensive policy assessment including inter alia economic effects beyond the electricity sector and existing institutional constraints

bond financing for renewable energy in asia abstract addressing the financing gap for renewable energy re projects in asia is critical to ensure that the rapidly increasing energy needs could be met sustainably this paper explores the cause of the financing gap in asia and proposes the use of bond financing to address the financing gap specifically three fixed income instruments namely local currency denominated lcy corporate bonds asset backed project bonds and financial green bonds will be assessed whilst the potential for these three instruments to mobilize large flows of private sector financing is great key supportive policies aimed at reducing the capital market bias for conventional power generation technologies and supportive re policies are required another key aspect would be the necessary deepening of local and regional fixed income markets before such capital market instruments are able to play a big role

energy security and renewable energy deployment in the eu liaisons dangereuses or virtuous circle abstract a large body of literature estimates the effect of energy security drivers on renewable energy deployment using import dependence as a proxy for energy security which is an approach that ignores the potential effect of other energy security strategies such as the diversification of energy sources using panel data for the energy sector across 21 eu member states we investigate the effect of different energy security concepts on the development of renewable energies we compare the results of applying different energy security indicators including the ones used in eu energy policymaking unlike previous studies this study reports a long term relationship between energy security and renewable deployment our findings suggest that the relationship between energy security policies and renewable energy sources res deployment is far from straightforward and depends on the chosen energy security strategy which is usually linked to different energy security conceptualizations our primary findings confirm i that res deployment is a consequence of a combination of energy security strategies including environmental concerns rather than being solely caused by a shift towards more sustainable energy policies and ii that among the different energy security strategies the diversification of energy sources through renewable energy deployment is a more coherent strategy than using res to reduce dependency

intra industry trade in financial services abstract intra industry trade iit has been central to increasing the variety of products available to consumers unlike traditional trade theories the recent trade theories have placed an emphasis on the role of foreign direct investment fdi in generating trade and increasing the volume of iit this study is the first study of intra industry trade in banking services in which the key elements of the new trade theories of iit have been taken into account in measuring the determinants of iit in banking services the empirical results of the determinants of iit in banking services indicate that factor endowments average per capita income fdi in banking economies of scale in the banking sector trade intensity between the us and its partners and market openness make a positive contribution to the volume of iit in banking services furthermore the empirical results indicate that intra trade activities amongst the us multinational corporations reduce the level of iit in banking services for the us

renewables portfolio standard a means for trade with electricity from renewable energy sources abstract this paper discusses the main support mechanisms for enhancing the deployment of renewable energies re implemented in different industrialised countries the focus is on the electricity sector where deregulation and liberalisation has led to market opening and introduction of competition in the formerly strongly regulated power market under open market conditions price regulation mechanisms in favour of renewable energies which were used by many governments to support renewables tend to be considered as being inappropriate because they lead to distortions in competition and are difficult to abolish once market participants got used to them therefore the idea of creating a demand for re instead of supporting supply is gradually spreading this paper concentrates on the renewables portfolio standard rps which is a considerably new instrument that is aimed on the demand side and has only recently entered discussion it is based on legislatively mandating a percentage share of electricity generated from renewables and proved with certificates before this new means is discussed in more detail a short overview of the existing supply side mechanism is given to point out the different approach in addition examples of some countries already having some experience with the rps are given to show the present status of implementation derived from these theoretical considerations and practical experiences the paper discusses possible impacts on market participants they depend strongly on the outline of the rps and the organisation of the electricity sector adopted as a conclusion the introduction of an rps cannot alone solve the problem of enhancing the use of re however the advantages are a higher degree of competition among generators or developers of re technology more freedom of choice concerning the options for meeting the requirement and perhaps less government expenditures also experiences with national certificate trading within the rps system could ease the way for international or at least european trading systems like the emissions trading as proposed in the kyoto protocol

the irrigation demand for electricity this paper examines the regional differences in the irrigation demand for electricity the analysis is based upon the rural electric cooperatives statistics on the sale of power for irrigation a simultaneous equation system is developed to focus on both the short run utilization of electricity in irrigation and the long run determination of the number of irrigators using electricity the structural equations are estimated using pooled state level data for the period 1969 79 in light of the model s results the impacts of changes in relative energy prices on irrigation are examined there are substantial differences in the irrigation practices among regions in the united states farmers choose irrigation systems in response to climate factor prices and relative returns from agriculture irrigation accounted for over 14 of total energy use in crop production in 1974 and it is estimated that over 60 of all irrigation power equipment is electric fea usda and brantwood publications this note shows demand estimates for irrigation electricity in various regions unlike most electric utilities the rural electric cooperatives recs collect and publish information on the use of electricity for irrigation a study of the recs irrigation demand for electricity provides a perspective on regional differences in the irrigation demand for electricity and on the impact of changes in relative energy prices information on the factors that affect irrigation demand growth are needed by the cooperatives to plan for the capacity required to serve irrigation farmers this investigation joins others which deal with energy and irrigation sloggett and clark investigated the differences in irrigation techniques hexem and heady king et al mapp and dobbins and katzman and matlin applied linear programming models to irrigation analysis this study employs econometric modeling to estimate price elasticities and the pattern of interfuel substitution for the irrigation use of electricity the next section presents a simultaneous equation model for regional irrigation demand for electricity the empirical estimation using pooled state level data for the period 1969 79 is then described the final section discusses the potential impact of relative energy price changes on irrigation demand

carbon tax simulations using a household demand model abstract the main objective of this paper is to analyse consumer response and welfare effects due to changes in energy or environmental policy to achieve this objective we formulate and estimate an econometric model for non durable consumer demand in sweden that utilises micro and macro data in the simulations we consider two revenue neutral scenarios that both imply a doubling of the co2 tax one that returns the revenues in the form of a lower vat and one that subsidise public transport one conclusion from the simulations is that the co2 tax has regional distribution effects in the sense that household living in sparsely populated areas carry a larger share of the tax burden

on the incidence of us tariffs this paper provides evidence on the incidence of tariffs on products of export interest to developing countries by investigating the relationship between per capita incomes of us trading partners and tariff rates it constitutes the first attempt to assess the incidence of tariffs imposed by the us on countries that span the entire range of per capita incomes average tariff rates are lower for the poorest and richest countries and higher for countries in the middle of the income distribution this finding is not consistent with the widely held view that tariffs used by industrial nations bear more heavily on products of export interest to poorer developing countries than on imports from industrial nations it is consistent with the tariff escalation pattern reported in earlier studies if advanced countries account for most products at the high end of the fabrication scale results show that poorest countries will find it difficult to escape tariffs by attaining higher levels of economic development

the production tax credit for wind turbine powerplants is an ineffective incentive abstract the us energy policy act epact of 1992 created a production tax credit of 1 5 kwh available for 10 years to promote certain renewable energy technologies including wind turbines this paper argues that the impact of the wind turbine production tax credit will be minimal the argument depends entirely on the nature of the project finance structure used by the private power industry for wind turbine development we show that tax credits can only be absorbed by equity investors if there is a large fraction of equity in the project capital structure this raises the financing cost of wind turbine projects compared to conventional power technology which relies on a large fraction of low cost debt if the tax credit were paid as a cash subsidy the capital structure could be shifted to low cost debt and financing costs could be significantly reduced

energy tax credits and housing improvement this paper investigates whether federal and state tax credits allowed to households who make energy saving improvements to their residence lead to an increase in improvement activity a two period utility maximization model of household behaviour is used to determine the theoretical influence of tax credits energy prices and other factors on the optimal magnitude of conservation capital improvement regressions using various qualitative measures of conservation improvement as the dependent variable are estimated using household level energy consumption and improvement data consistent with evidence from earlier surveys the empirical results do not support the hypothesis that energy tax credits lead to more widespread or more extensive energy conservation improvement activity

fixed feed in tariff versus premium a review of the current spanish system a b s t r a c t since 1998 the spanish government established a feed in system where res e generators could choose between two alternatives fixed feed in tariff and premium nowadays all res e 1 can be sold in the electricity market getting an additional premium except for solar photovoltaic one important novelty established in 2007 is a cap and floor system for facilities under the premium option the aim of this paper is to analyze and compare these two alternative options fixed fit and premiums which coexist at the same time in spain describe the evolution of both systems and evaluate its performance the introduction of this support system in spain led to very good results in terms of res e deployment the main advantage of the premium option is that it is a scheme integrated in the electricity market one disadvantage is that it can occasionally lead to overcompensation one way to try to avoid it is to set a cap value in order to evaluate the performance of this dual support system not only res e deployment has been assessed but also the policy stability the adequacy of res e production to the electricity demand pattern and the changes in the investors behaviour

the impact of carbon taxation on the uk economy abstract the paper explores the likely macroeconomic impact of imposing a carbon tax at levels sufficient to reduce co 2 emissions significantly many studies have indicated the probablity of such a tax entailing substantial economic costs however such studies have not tended to take into account the possible positive effects of using carbon tax revenues to reduce distortionary taxes elsewhere in the economy or to offset competitiveness effects or of the possibility that a carbon tax will stimulate innovation and efficiency in the energy sector with positive economic results the paper concludes that when these factors are given due weight imposing a carbon tax is more likely to entail economic benefit than cost

impacts of an ec carbon energy tax and deregulating thermal power supply on co2 so2 and nox emissions emission of co2 so2 and nox are all closely linked to the burning of fossil fuels here we report on simulations done by linking a sectoral european energy model seem covering energy demand in nine western european countries with the emission transport deposition model rains developed by iiasa the study analyses emissions of co2 so2 and nox deposition of sulphur and nitrogen and the extent of areas where the critical load for sulphur is exceeded in year 2000 under four different energy scenarios two different sets of future behavioural patterns for the thermal electric power production sector are considered in one regime called the plan efficient regime the sector is assumed to follow official plans with regard to investment in new capacity in the other regime called the cost efficient regime the thermal power sector is assumed to behave in a cost minimizing manner the effects of the proposed ec carbon energy tax are studied under both regimes giving rise to altogether four scenarios

impact of tax reform on renewable energy and cogeneration projects abstract this study examines the sensitivity of renewable energy and cogeneration project returns to proposed changes in the federal tax code specifically to reforms proposed in 1985 by president reagan we examine six different technologies by defining typical configurations project cash flows are projected over a twelve year horizon and the investor s internal rate of return irr is calculated we calculate changes in irr as various proposed tax changes are assumed to take effect we find that capital intensive projects such as geothermal and small hydro suffer most from proposed tax code changes conversely the least capital intensive projects cogeneration fare best

renewable electricity support systems are feed in systems taking the lead abstract support systems for renewable energy sourced electricity res e can be classified into price and quantity based systems their most representative instruments are feed in systems price based and quota systems e g green certificates or a renewable portfolio standard quantity based the origins of these support systems are quite different and are motivated by different political and economic needs likewise their geographical distribution and effectiveness also differ worldwide feed in systems are the most widespread res e support system in recent years some classical quota countries have partially or even totally changed to feed in systems feed in systems seem to encourage higher res e deployment technology diversity and investor security although the manufacturing capacity for certain res e technologies has been more developed in some feed in countries lately this has changed to some extent due to the incorporation of emerging countries in the res e industry traditionally quota systems appeared to be more compatible with liberalisation of the electricity market however since the introduction of the premium system this argument can be countered since feed in premiums can be considered compatible with the electricity market as quota systems regarding the price paid for res e in quota countries higher green certificate prices have not led to higher res e quantities moreover the relative support levels in quota countries are higher on average than in fit countries contradicting the common argument that quota systems are more cost effective additionally feed in systems especially if stepped tariffs are designed encourage higher res e geographical dispersion avoiding the concentration of res e facilities in just a few locations which can lead to nimby not in my back yard syndrome all these factors may explain the steady spread of feed in systems worldwide the purpose of this paper is to assess the performance of quota and feed in systems thereby contributing to the worldwide debate on the suitability of the different res e support systems

scale economies and intra industry trade abstract this investigation of the relationship between intra industry trade and scale economies shows industries with low scale economies more frequently have high rather than low intra industry trade shares theoretical studies should focus on causes of intra industry trade other than scale economies

the renewable portfolio standard design considerations and an implementation survey renewables have social and environmental bene ts compared to conventional electricity sources but are rarely competitive on a strict nancial cost basis this is because conventional sources are sometimes subsidized their full pollution costs are ignored and renewables involve newer higher cost technologies whose relative costs will fall with commercialization governments use several mechanisms to support renewables including direct nancial support grants loans indirect support r d demonstrations reform of nancial costs of conventional sources subsidy removal pollution taxes and the renewable portfolio standard rps the rps requires a minimum share of electricity from renewable energy sources its use is spreading because it maintains an incentive for renewable producers to reduce costs links the regulated market outcome to an environmental target and reduces government involvement although it is too early to evaluate fully its e ectiveness the survey for this study explored implementation issues in three european countries nine us states and australia and found the following the rps target is usually set to have environmental bene ts without causing signi cant price increases cost caps are sometimes used most jurisdictions limit eligibility to gridconnected domestic renewables the rps is usually applied to producers rather than consumers and to energy output not capacity flexibility mechanisms are desired but a challenge to implement administration in the us and australia is by government with delegation to independent utility regulators while in europe it is more the responsibility of government everywhere the rps is applied alongside other mechanisms of renewables support 2001 elsevier science ltd all rights reserved

trade barriers multinational involvement and intra industry trade panel data evidence from india the article analyses the effects of trade barriers and multinationals on the intensity of intra industry trade iit in a panel of indian manufacturing industries from 1988 to 1999 we find that the intensity of iit increases with the reduction of trade barriers this is expected as greater competition from imports leads individual plants in the domestic industry to specialize in the manufacturing of unique varieties the analysis suggests that horizontal market seeking multinational activities in the domestic industries exert a negative influence on iit this is consistent with the view that horizontal multinationals displace exports to the host country at the same time our results indicate that iit will be stimulated to the extent that the entry of multinationals induces intra industry specialization we also analyse the role of product differentiation and plant level scale economies in determining iit

a bi objective stochastic programming model for a centralized green supply chain with deteriorating products in recent years consumers and legislation have been pushing companies to design their activities in such a way as to reduce negative environmental impacts more and more it is therefore important to examine the optimization of total supply chain costs and environmental impacts together however because of the recycling of deteriorated items the environmental impacts of deteriorating items are more significant than those of non deteriorating ones the objective of this paper is to develop a stochastic mathematical model and to propose a new replenishment policy in a centralized supply chain for deteriorating items in this model we consider inventory and transportation costs as well as the environmental impacts under uncertain demand several transportation vehicles producing various greenhouse gas ghg levels are considered the best transportation vehicles and inventory policy are determined by finding a balance between financial and environmental criteria in this way we develop a linear mathematical model and present a numerical example from the real world to demonstrate its applicability and effectiveness we then perform a sensitivity analysis and provide some managerial insights finally more promising directions are suggested for future research

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

impact of flexibility in public r d funding how real options could avoid the crowding out effect abstract this paper explores new mechanisms to ensure grants are additional to private research and development investment with no displacing or crowding out effect our results indicate that by studying the flexibility embedded in these type of projects using the real options framework it is possible to reduce the size of grants given by financing bodies while remaining equally attractive to companies this result is reached due to the higher flexibility provided in potential new grant schemes in addition to the obvious consequence of less expensive public r d funding there are other side benefits to this new scheme such as avoiding the crowding out effect while also allowing more honest and sincere research and development investment by companies because they are sharing the risk with the funding body this paper presents a case study an r d project carried out in the concentrated solar power sector in which we propose and calculate the effect of providing the grant 2 years earlier with a sensitivity analysis performed over the discount rate volatility and first commercial revenue this paper may encourage funding bodies to consider implementing alternative grant schemes valuing the flexibility embedded in r d projects

an overview of incentive policies for the expansion of renewable energy generation in electricity power systems and the brazilian experience abstract energy production from renewable sources is already a reality in many countries and with that different strategies for incentivizing investments in renewable energy generation have been proposed and used over the years in this study long term policies that have been applied in several countries such as feed in tariffs shares with commercialization of certificates auctions and net metering are overviewed and discussed the main advantages and disadvantages of these incentive strategies are emphasized focusing on applications some of these strategies that have already been applied in brazil are analyzed in greater depth emphasizing the potentialities and fragilities of these mechanisms observed within the country even though it is a country that stands out in relation to other latin american countries regarding electricity generation from non hydro renewable sources brazil still faces barriers that prevent a utilization compatible with its potential moreover the trend for renewable sources such as wind and solar power is to represent an energy capacity reserve to cover hydrological risks and also to contribute to a distributed generation spread through electricity distribution networks

indirect measures of trade costs limitations and caveats abstract trade barriers which include transportation costs tariffs language barriers and bureaucratic red tape play a key role in the determination of trade flows because direct measures are only available for a few components researchers have developed so called indirect measures of trade costs which estimate bilateral trade integration from cross sectional variation in observed trade flows the paper explores the theoretical and empirical determinants of these indirect measures of trade costs the results suggest that while they do capture variation in trade barriers the indirect measures may also reflect variation in other factors such as differences in tastes and production costs

hybrid modeling to support energy climate policy effects of feed in tariffs to promote renewable energy in portugal abstract feed in tariffs have been the main policy instrument applied in portugal for the promotion of electricity produced from renewable energy sources under the eu directives on energy and climate regulation in this paper we provide an empirical impact assessment of the economic and environmental effects of portugal s fits policy to promote res e generation impact assessment of policy instruments plays a crucial role on decision making process for numerical simulations we make use of a hybrid top down bottom up general equilibrium modeling approach which represents a reliable tool to analyze the complex interactions between economic energy and environmental issues related to energy policies numerical simulations confirm the empirical evidence that the fits policy implemented by portugal was both an effective and a cost efficient way to increase the generation of electricity from renewable energy sources and thus to achieve the national res e target of 45 in 2010 results show relatively modest macroeconomic impacts indicating potentially low economic adjustment costs from an environmental perspective the deployment of renewable energy source results in significant carbon emissions reductions

integration of renewable energy sources in southeast europe a review of incentive mechanisms and feasibility of investments abstract incentivizing development and deployment of renewable energy sources res but also other low carbon technologies lct has been a successful way of promoting new technologies by creating a feasible investment case and making them competitive with traditional energy sources although different incentive mechanisms exist feed in tariffs have shown to be the best model for accelerating lct development guaranteeing producers preferential prices for the produced electricity over a period of time and enabling them access to the power network to sell inject produced electricity due to these benefits feed in tariff models are the most common model for stimulating res integration in southeast europe the paper reviews the current state of preferential tariffs for res in countries of southeast europe while some countries already have significant installed res capacity others are still in the planning stage the review shows that the amount of installed capacity of a specific technology has a strong impact on the support for the future projects for same technology this comprehensive review of legislative development supporting res as well as technologies preferred in different countries of the region is supported with feasibility assessment of investing in res using the example of two different technology projects wind and photovoltaic analysing the impact of the current tariffs on the return on investment for each country of the region

assessing the role of us agriculture in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and generating additional environmental benefits abstract this study measures the changes in greenhouse gas ghg emissions from us crop production under a scenario where farmers face higher energy prices with the implementation of the kyoto protocol the focus is on predicting the impact on direct and indirect energy resource use and measuring the changes in specific ghgs the study also assesses the potential for additional environmental benefits from the changes in agricultural resource use the analyses rely on the results from a calibrated mathematical programming model of regional us crop production the model accounts for input substitution when farmers are faced with external shocks the results suggest that when energy prices increase there is a relatively small decrease in total harvested acreage but a more significant drop in the use of energy intensive resources overall ghg emissions from us crop production decrease by 20 suggesting agriculture is more effective in abating ghg emissions than the other sectors of us economy there is also a good potential for additional positive environmental externalities from the decreases in resources used in crop production

assessing the strength and effectiveness of renewable electricity feed in tariffs in european union countries in the last two decades feed in tariffs fit have emerged as one of the most popular policies for supporting renewable electricity res e generation a few studies have assessed the effectiveness of res e policies but most ignore policy design features and market characteristics e g electricity price and production cost that influence policy strength we employ 1992 2008 panel data to conduct the first econometric analysis of the effectiveness of fit policies in promoting solar photovoltaic pv and onshore wind power development in 26 european union countries we develop a new indicator for fit strength that captures variability in tariff size contract duration digression rate and electricity price and production cost to estimate the resulting return on investment we regress this indicator on added res e capacity using a fixed effects specification and find that fit policies have driven solar pv development in the eu however this effect is overstated without controlling for country characteristics and is concealed without accounting for policy design we do not find robust evidence that fit policies have driven wind power development overall we show that the interaction of policy design electricity price and electricity production cost is a more important determinant of res e development than policy enactment alone

energy price impacts modelling in the agriculture sector abstract energy price impacts in the agriculture sector are mainly of economic and non economic types however economic impacts are well researched this paper surveys the various types of energy price impacts and different estimation techniques used in the past the study suggests that the energy price impacts estimation from a systems model of the agriculture sector is the best for several reasons for this purpose a price endogenous sectoral programming model of agriculture can be developed in a partial or general equilibrium framework however data requirements for this are enormous

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

impacts of technological change on factor substitution between energy and other inputs within us agriculture 1950 79 abstract past efforts to estimate elasticities of substitution between inputs both in and out of agriculture have usually made use of a single data set to provide the elasticities between the input pairs and have led to highly conflicting results particularly with respect to the substitution between capital or machinery and energy this study reveals that the elasticity of substitution between a number of input pairs in agriculture can vary by substantial amounts depending on the time period used for the estimation energy in agriculture which was a complement for machinery in the 1950s was a substitute by the 1970s

energy tax credits and residential conservation investment evidence from panel data using panel data on individual tax returns and variation in state tax policy we measure the impact of government tax policies to encourage residential conservation investment on the probability of making these investments unlike previous work we account for unobserved heterogeneity in tastes for energy saving activities and its possible correlation with tax policy at the state level we find that controlling for unobserved heterogeneity is very important based on our preferred point estimate of the tax price coefficient a 10 percentage point change in the tax price for energy investment would lead to a 24 percent increase in the probability of making an investment

how much do european households pay for green energy abstract the price of electricity for european end users typically fell until development of wind and solar energy began but has increased since then we estimate the savings in co2 emissions due to solar and wind energy and calculate what end users pay per tonne co2 assuming that price increases since the introduction of solar and wind power are due to these types of energy these payments are in most cases well above even high and unlikely estimates of the cost of carbon and in some cases several times as high

feed in tariff vs renewable portfolio standard an empirical test of their relative effectiveness in promoting wind capacity development abstract this paper examines the relative effectiveness of feed in tariff fit and renewable portfolio standard rps in promoting wind capacity development using panel data conservative estimates suggest that on average across countries fit increases total wind capacity more than rps by a magnitude of about 1800 mw when using time variant policy indicators the difference between the two policies increases to nearly 2000 mw roughly 8 of 2009 cumulative capacity in germany as for annual wind capacity since 2005 this paper has found no significant difference between fit and rps it is also found that wind energy development responds to high electricity demand and high oil dependence

pv sector in the european union countries clusters and efficiency abstract european union eu due to several challenges that exist nowadays has changed its energy policy in order to fulfill international commitments concerning greenhouse gas emission and to assure safety in supply and stable prices eu has been a leader in renewable energy in many eu countries solar energy is a possible and very viable option together with wind energy photovoltaic energy is the new support core of a low carbon eu economy in what concerns electricity production in this work clusters of countries were generated based on the energy produced by pv systems and the share of energy from pv systems in the total electricity produced by renewable sources this work also analyzed the production of energy from the photovoltaic sector in eu and compared it with the existing potential for this type of energy roughly half of the eu countries are producing energy within the limits of what is expected considering the irradiation on optimally inclined plane however some of them could improve the ratio between energy production and installed power considering the leader countries in energy production from photovoltaic czech republic and spain are the countries that exceed what it is expected

supply amount and marginal price of renewable electricity under the renewables portfolio standard in japan abstract the renewables portfolio standard rps in japan requires that approximately 1 35 of each retail supplier s electricity sales in fy2010 come from renewable energy sources res for example photovoltaics wind biomass geothermal and small hydropower to help retail suppliers and renewable generators develop effective strategies this study provides a quantitative analysis of the impact of this measure we assume the supply conditions for electricity generation from renewable energy sources res e based on regional resource endowments and we derive the cost effective compositions of renewable portfolios res e certificate prices and additional costs to retail suppliers the future prospects of res e are assessed based on technology region and year up to fy2010 the analysis reveals that wind power and biomass power generated from municipal waste will provide the majority of the total supply of res e under the rps it also indicates that the marginal price of res e certificates will be approximately 5 8 jpy kwh 5 2 usc kwh in fy2010 in the case wherein the marginal price of electricity is assumed to be 4 jpy kwh 3 6 usc kwh in order to elaborate on this further sensitivity analyses for some parameters of res and the price of electricity are provided the dynamic supply curves of res e certificates are also indicated

carbon abatement potential of solar home systems in india and their cost reduction due to carbon finance about 78 million rural households in india reportedly lack access to grid electricity about 67 million of them use kerosene for lighting government of india is promoting the use of solar home systems shs as one of the options for meeting lighting requirements in households in remote and less inhabited villages about 363 399 shs were reportedly disseminated across the country by december 2007 apart from meeting the basic lighting need of the households shs also help in abating the emissions of green house gases ghgs by directly displacing the use of kerosene in households that currently use it for lighting this study has attempted at estimating the co2 mitigation potential of shs in india by studying the potential for their diffusion and the appropriate baseline subsequently the scope for cost reduction to the user due to carbon finance if received is also studied it is found that carbon finance could reduce the effective burden of shs to the user by 19 if carbon prices were 10 tco22 and no transaction costs were involved in getting the carbon revenues these benefits are also estimated for scenarios where transaction costs are incurred by the project proponent in getting the carbon benefits

intra industry specialization in a multi country and multi industry framework the paper tests alternative hypotheses as to the factors determining the extent of intra industry trade defined as the share of this trade in total trade in a multi country and multi industry framework the empirical results show that the extent of intra industry trade in a particular industry between any two countries depends on the characteristics of the industry and the countries concerned the explanatory power of the regressions for the entire group of countries exporting manufactured goods as well as for trade among the developed countries is relatively high and practically all the hypotheses concerning the impact of industry trade are supported by the empirical results lower coefficients of determination have been obtained for trade between developed and developing countries and for trade among developing countries but the estimates generally support the hypotheses put forward in the paper in these cases also

does the linder effect hold for differentiated agri food and beverage product trade using a generalized gravity equation this study tests for the linder effect in differentiated agri food product trade i e as the demand structures of two countries become more similar their trade intensity increases two proxies of demand structure the balassa index and the absolute value of the difference in per capita gross domestic products gdps of trading partners are used to capture the linder effect in addition two measures of bilateral trade the grubel and lloyd gl index and the value of bilateral trade are used as the dependent variable this study investigates the role of the linder effect in explaining the trade of 37 differentiated agri food and beverage products categorized into eight product groups cereals fresh fish frozen fish vegetables fresh fruit processed fruit tea and coffee and alcoholic beverages the data covers trade across 52 developed and developing countries from 1990 to 2000 the type of proxy used for the linder effect and the way in which bilateral trade

intra tourism trade income distribution and tourism endowment an econometric investigation empirical investigation nowak et al 2012 points out that vertical intra industry trade viit in europe is the dominant type of intra industry trade iit in the tourism sector this article is the first in tourism literature to test separately the determinants of vertically and horizontally differentiated services using the most recent models in the theory of iit we examine bilateral trade among all trading partners of the sample of european countries covering the period from 2000 to 2008 we show that differences in gross domestic product per capita and the income distribution overlap as well as cultural proximity are the most significant driving forces behind viit for european countries geographic distance has a negative effect whereas specific tourism endowments and relative size of the economies are less conclusive these results confirm theory predictions and most of the empirical findings related to the pattern of viit for the manufacturing sector as expected we find that determinants

aggregate demand shifts income distribution and the linder hypothesis the intraindustry trade literature emphasizes nonhomothetic preferences and incomes as important determinants of aggregate demand and trade patterns the authors provide evidence for such preferences particularly that the structure of income driven demand shifts is related to indices of linder type product characteristics and that income distribution is a significant factor in determining aggregate expenditures these results imply that as general income levels rise the relative volume of trade in manufactured consumer goods should rise and the total volume of trade should rise independent of changes in the intercountry difference between income levels copyright 1996 by mit press

the main support mechanisms to finance renewable energy development considering that the major part of greenhouse gases is carbon dioxide there is a global concern aimed at reducing carbon emissions additionally major consumer countries are looking for alternati

assessment of european union transition scenarios with a special focus on the issue of carbon leakage this paper uses the model gemini e3 to simulate and assess the transition scenario to 2020 framed by the european union in its energy climate directive and it raises several issues in this connection after a brief description of the model the paper presents the results of the scenarios mainly the values of the major indicators of carbon price both in the ets and in non ets sectors and the welfare cost of the eu policy under the various configurations considered while it is independent of the scenario in the ets sector in the non ets sector the value of carbon is very sensitive to the provisions of the directive and in particular the option of resorting to the flexibility mechanisms the welfare cost also varies significantly according to scenarios and its value for the entire eu is more than double in the scenario closest to the directive as compared to the least cost one the paper also addresses the very sensitive issue of carbon leakage and argues in favor of a new concept of net leakage the analysis shows that while carbon leakage may affect some specific sectors at the aggregate level it does not represent a real concern with a magnitude of at most a few percent of ghg abatement by annex b countries

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

energy taxation as a policy instrument to reduce co2 emissions a net benefit analysis abstract this study evaluates the costs and benefits of energy taxation as a policy instrument to conserve energy and reduce co2 emissions the study combines economic cost estimates generated with a cge model and monetary estimates of environmental damages in a comprehensive cost benefit framework we find that optimal co2 emissions reductions range from 5 to 38 depending on different assumptions about energy substitution elasticities and environmental damages co2 emissions reductions of between 8 and 64 can be attained at no additional welfare cost relative to a policy of not undertaking any action to control co2 emissions

clean energy policies and green jobs an evaluation of green jobs in u s metropolitan areas state and local governments in the u s are actively promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency to seek economic development opportunities and create green jobs this study evaluates the employment effects of state and local clean energy and climate policies in u s metropolitan areas msas in 2006 the regression analysis shows that both state and local clean energy policies have positive and statistically significant impacts on green jobs at the metropolitan level the results from two stage probit least squares 2spls indicate that every additional state clean energy policy tool adopted is associated with 1 more green jobs in the msa on average msas with iclei membership maintain 9 3 more green jobs than msas without iclei membership ceteris paribus

risk based assessment of the cost efficiency and the effectivity of renewable energy support schemes certificate markets versus feed in tariffs the introduction of renewable energy sources in the electricity generation mix has the potential to reduce power sector s emissions and countries dependence on imported oil climate change concerns and highly volatile oil prices have attracted governments interest and support to sustain investments in renewable energy capacity and different support policies have been implemented in many countries around the world this paper analyzes the effects of investors risk aversion on the performance of support schemes the analysis compares two policy options a feed in tariff mechanism with a certificate market system results show that while a tariff mechanism could obtain better results than a certificate market its performance is strictly dependent on regulator choices a certificate market instead permits to obtain the desired level of renewable energy market share with good cost efficiency as long as investors risk aversion is moderate moreover discounting future cash flows with higher social discount rates further benefits a certificate system making it preferable to feed in tariffs

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

renewable energy technology uptake in kazakhstan policy drivers and barriers in a transitional economy kazakhstan has considerable renewable energy potential the development of which can provide significant environmental economic and social benefits the country s national low carbon energy strategy aims to bring the share of renewables in electricity production to 50 by 2050 despite the considerable renewable energy resource base and ambitious deployment targets the current contribution of non hydro renewable energy to final electricity demand is less than one percent adoption of renewable energy technologies in a fossil fuel resource rich country like kazakhstan remains a big challenge but current low oil prices and a weakening economy may offer new opportunities deploying an analytical hierarchy process methodology we identify the most significant barriers to uptake of renewable energy in the context of the electricity sector the main factors preventing the penetration and scale up of renewables include a political and regulatory framework which supports and promotes a continued focus on fossil fuels supported in part by regional geopolitics a lack of awareness of sustainable alternative energy generation systems and a combination of social poverty and poor education in communities that are most likely to benefit from broadly distributed renewable technologies market conditions driven by current electricity tariffs inefficient but incumbent power technologies and a high risk business environment ranking barriers by importance will provide practitioners and regulators a mechanism to improve policies and incentivize renewable energy uptake in kazakhstan and other resource rich transition economies in central asia

economic and environmental effectiveness of renewable energy policy instruments best practices from india abstract renewable energy re has been identified as a key tool to counter climate change and enhance energy security countries across the globe have been promoting this sector by several policy measures however limited research has been undertaken on the economic and environmental efficacy of re policy instruments especially in context of emerging economies like india which have witnessed substantial capacity addition and have set ambitious targets to de carbonize their economy this paper identifies 25 innovative practices followed in india which have enabled accelerated re capacity addition with minimal financial obligations these include energy entrepreneurship energy democratization private sector participation hedging and apportioning re procurement use of auctions with stringent participatory norms creditworthy counter party leverage of risk capital by developmental institutions regular revision of tariffs environmental cess on polluting industries long term re purchase trajectory and incentivizing green power output results indicate high financial impact of instruments support of us 3 5 mw h over applicable tariff which gets neutralized when tax inflow is considered lower carbon abatement cost us 3 6 tco2eq depicts high environmental efficacy the paper shares best practices from india in terms of efficient use of re policy enablers which may be contextualized in other emerging economies as per the local requirements