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

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

neither crowding in nor out public direct investment mobilising private investment into renewable electricity projects abstract rapid structural change towards a low carbon energy supply requires significant additional investments into innovative but high risk low carbon technologies mobilising greater private investments requires applying the right policy instruments but while fiscal measures and regulation have been well researched systematic quantitative evidence about the effect of public direct investment is lacking absent empirical evidence contradictory theoretical arguments claim that such public co investments either crowd out or crowd in private investors in this paper we show that the macroeconomic concept of crowding out in is inapplicable to sectoral studies such as of renewable electricity instead both neoclassical microeconomics and evolutionary economics suggest public direct investment to have a positive effect due to either externalities or market creation effects we also provide the first quantitative estimate of the effect of public direct investment on private investment into renewable electricity technologies for 17 countries in the period 2004 2014 using fgls and static and dynamic gmm estimators we find that public investments not only have a positive but also consistently the largest effect on private investment flows relative to feed in tariffs taxes and renewable portfolio standards in general and for wind and solar technologies separately implications for policy aimed at accelerating the low carbon transition are discussed

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

financing investment in the european electricity transmission network consequences on long term sustainability of the tsos financial structure this article focuses on the ability of european tsos to meet the demand for substantial investments in the electricity transmission grid over the next two decades we employ quantitative analysis to assess the impact of the required capital expenditures under a set of alternative financing strategies we consider a best case scenario of full cooperation between the european tsos it appears that under current trends in the evolution of transmission tariffs only half the volumes of investment currently planned could be funded a highly significant increase in transmission tariffs will be required to ensure the whole scale investments can be delivered finally alternative strategies can dampen the impact on tariffs but they can only partially substitute for this increase in charges paid by network users

towards improved policy processes for promoting innovation in renewable electricity technologies in the uk this paper analyses recent current and potential future relations between policy processes and substantive outcomes in uk low carbon innovation policy focussing on policies relating to renewable electricity generation technologies it examines the development of policy processes relating to the adoption and implementation of the renewables obligation and how these may affect the current and likely future success of the obligation in promoting low carbon innovation it examines the new policy and institutional processes put in place in the 2003 energy white paper and argues that these are unlikely to provide the strategic long term framework needed to realise the ambitious goals for uk energy policy set out in the white paper finally it outlines some suggestions for further development of policy processes to facilitate improved delivery of these goals based on guiding principles for sustainable innovation policy processes developed by the authors and their colleagues

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

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

have fossil fuels been substituted by renewables an empirical assessment for 10 european countries abstract the electricity mix worldwide has become diversified mainly by exploiting endogenous and green resources this trend has been spurred on so as to reduce both carbon dioxide emissions and external energy dependency one would expect the larger penetration of renewable energies to provoke a substitution effect of fossil fuels by renewable sources in the electricity generation mix however this effect is far from evident in the literature this paper thus contributes to clarifying whether the effect exists and if so the characteristics of the effect by source three approaches generation capacity and demand were analysed jointly to accomplish the main aim of this study an autoregressive distributed lag model was estimated using the driscoll and kraay estimator with fixed effects to analyse ten european countries in a time span from 1990 until 2014 the paper provides evidence for the substitution effect in solar pv and hydropower but not in wind power sources indeed the generation approach highlights the necessity for flexible and controllable electricity production from natural gas and hydropower to back up renewable sources moreover the results prove that peaks of electricity have been an obstacle to the accommodation of intermittent renewable sources

carbon pricing efficacy cross country evidence to date there has been an absence of cross country empirical studies on the efficacy of carbon pricing in this paper we present estimates of the contribution of carbon pricing to reducing national carbon dioxide co2 emissions from fuel combustion using several econometric modelling approaches that control for other key policies and for structural factors that are relevant for emissions we use data for 142 countries over a period of two decades 43 of which had a carbon price in place at the national level or below by the end of the study period we find evidence that the average annual growth rate of co2 emissions from fuel combustion has been around 2 percentage points lower in countries that have had a carbon price compared to countries without an additional euro per tonne of co2 in carbon price is associated with a reduction in the subsequent annual emissions growth rate of approximately 0 3 percentage points all else equal while it is impossible to fully control for all relevant influences on emissions growth our estimates suggest that the emissions trajectories of countries with and without carbon prices tend to diverge over time

do deployment policies pick technologies by not picking applications a simulation of investment decisions in technologies with multiple applications abstract the role of deployment policies that aim to foster technological change has grown considerably especially in the fields of energy and climate however recent research has shown that the adoption of deployment policies carries the potential of locking in the technology that is most cost effective at the point of policy introduction but may be inefficient in the long term the present paper contributes to the emerging literature on the role of deployment policies in creating path dependency and eventually technology lock in while previous studies focused on the relationship between lock in and the technology specificity of deployment policies this paper introduces a new factor the existence of multiple applications for a technology we argue that this factor is highly relevant for technological lock in and should be considered by policy makers to support our argument we simulate the competition among four stationary battery technologies across energy system applications in an investment simulation model this simulation shows that the degree of competition among technologies differs strongly across applications which corresponds with a highly varying lock in probability hence selecting applications in deployment policies very likely corresponds to selecting technologies we discuss the implications of these results for both policy makers and for the academic debate on deployment policies and technological lock in as well as on technology assessment and governance more generally based on the notion that policies can have different technology specificity levels we develop the idea of the application specificity of policies and provide examples of currently enacted deployment policies that vary in terms of their technology and application specificity

prices versus quantities comparing economic efficiency of feed in tariff and renewable portfolio standard in promoting renewable electricity generation abstract in order to promote renewable electricity generation several countries have been adopting a feed in tariff fit or a renewable portfolio standard rps of these two renewable energy policies investigating which one has better performance is a subject of debate this study comparatively analyzes the economic efficiency of fit and rps in the south korean renewable energy market fit was implemented from 2002 to 2011 while rps has been in force since 2012 hence a comparative analysis of the two policies is ideal the benefit cost ratio and net present value were measured from two different perspectives the government and energy producers the results showed that rps was more efficient for photovoltaic energy from the government s perspective whereas fit for non photovoltaic energy such as wind power bio energy and fuel cells however from the energy producers perspective fit was more efficient for photovoltaic energy while rps was more efficient for non photovoltaic energy

growth and renewable energy in europe a random effect model with evidence for neutrality hypothesis this is an empirical study on the causal relationship between economic growth and renewable energy for 27 european countries in a multivariate panel framework over the period 1997 2007 using a random effect model and including final energy consumption greenhouse gas emissions and employment as additional independent variables in the model empirical results do not confirm causality between renewable energy consumption and gdp although panel causality tests unfold short run relationships between renewable energy and greenhouse gas emissions and employment the estimated cointegration factor refrains from unity indicating only a weak if any relationship between economic growth and renewable energy consumption in europe suggesting evidence of the neutrality hypothesis which can partly be explained by the uneven and insufficient exploitation of renewable energy sources across europe

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

complying with the kyoto protocol under uncertainty taxes or tradable permits the kyoto protocol allocates tradable emission allowances aaus to developed countries but they are free to choose a set of policy instruments to comply with these targets we compare two different policy instruments a tax and purely domestic tradable permits for the european union the us and japan information on abatement costs and international permit price is imperfect and stems from nine global economic models for a country party to the protocol the benefit of emission reduction is that it can sell more or has to buy less aaus we show that in this context permits entail a slightly lower expected cost than a tax for the us and japan whereas both instruments yield an almost equal outcome for europe applying weitzman s framework prices vs quantities res 1974 in this context we show the importance of the positive correlation between costs and benefits technology shocks that lead to low abatement costs in one country generally lead to low abatement costs in other countries too thereby leading to a low international permit price in the true up period

dissipation of contestable rents by small numbers of contenders the theory of rent seeking with its origins in the observations of gordon tullock 1967 or to use jagdish bhagwati s 1982 proposed term the theory of directly unproductive profit seeking activities is concerned with the potentially adverse effects on resource allocation of incentives to cap ture and defend artificially contrived rents and transfers the scope for so cial loss proposed by the theory derives from the relation between the value of a contestable prize and the value of the resources attracted into the con test to determine the beneficiary of the prize underlying this social loss is a specification of how rational behavior by optimizing agents links the value of the prize sought to the resources expended it has been traditional to assume competitive behavior in describing the activities of lobbying and influence seeking then if some further condi tions are satisfied l the total value of the resources expended precisely equals the value of the prize sought so dissipation is complete 2 conse quently the social cost associated with contestability of a rent can be in ferred from the value of the rent itself and the detailed and hard to come by information on individual outlays made in the course of the contest be comes unnecessary by basing their analyses on competitive dissipation contributors to the rent seeking literature see the review by robert tollison 1982 have been able to presume that the observed value of a contested rent is an exact measure of the associated social cost of monopoly power or regu lation similarly in the trade theoretic literature where the rights contested are to quota premia or revenues from trade taxes krueger 1974 bhagwati

measuring the temporal dynamics of policy mixes an empirical analysis of renewable energy policy mixes balance and design features in nine countries abstract complex societal or environmental problems require fast and substantial socio technical transitions for instance in the case of climate change these transitions need to take place in the energy transport and several industry sectors to induce and accelerate such transitions numerous policy interventions are required which interact with each other in policy mixes while several conceptual studies on policy mixes have been published recently there is very little empirical research apart from single case or small n studies it has been prominently argued that the debate about policy mixes has reached an impasse partly due to this lack of empirical work this paper addresses this gap by providing a first analysis of the temporal dynamics of complex policy mixes to do so we develop a conceptualization and measurement of policy mix balance across instrument types as well as policy mix design features in the form of intensity as a general and technology specificity as a technology focused design feature this allows us to answer the question how temporal dynamics of policy mixes differ between countries regarding their balance and design features our measurement approach is developed bottom up i e policies are assessed individually and then aggregated systematically at the policy mix level this enables overcoming the dependent variable problem in the study of policy change i e the problem of measuring policy output more specifically we develop a comparative dataset of 522 renewable energy policies in nine oecd countries our analysis shows that countries policy mix dynamics vary strongly regarding some variables e g technology specificity but less regarding others e g balance as a validity check we also test the effects of these mix dynamics on policy outcome in the form of renewable energy technology diffusion we reflect our findings in light of the theoretical debates around policy mixes and policy design and discuss how our results provoke an agenda for the new generation of research on policy mixes we specifically discuss avenues for future research with a particular focus on the politics of policy mixes

effects of policies on patenting in wind power technologies abstract this paper explores the effects of policies and other factors driving innovation in wind power technologies in twelve oecd countries over more than two decades patent counts are used as an indicator for innovation the factors considered are generally derived from the systems of innovation literature count data econometric model were used for the estimations the suggest that patenting in wind power technology is positively related to public r d in wind power reflecting supply side policy the stock of wind capacity reflecting learning effects the number of patents per capita reflecting a country s innovative capacity and the share of green party voters reflecting the legitimacy of the technology in particular the presence of production or capacity targets for wind power or renewable energy sources and a stable policy environment reflecting policy process appear to be favourable for patenting wind power technologies these results are robust to various model specifications distributional assumptions and alternative classifications of wind power technologies in the patent search

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

who invests in renewable electricity production empirical evidence and suggestions for further research transforming energy systems to fulfill the needs of a low carbon economy requires large investments in renewable electricity production res e recent literature underlines the need to take a closer look at the composition of the res e investor group in order to understand the motives and investment processes of different types of investors however existing energy policies generally consider res e investments made on a regional or national level and target investors who evaluate their res e investments according to least cost high profit criteria we present empirical evidence to show that res e investments are made by a heterogeneous group of investors that a variety of investors exist and that their formation varies among the different types of renewable sources this has direct implications for our understanding of the investment process in res e and for the study of motives and driving forces of res e investors we introduce a multi dimensional framework for analyzing differences between categories of investors which not only considers to the standard economic dimension which is predominant in the contemporary energy literature but also considers the entrepreneurship innovation adoption and institutional dimensions the framework emphasizes the influence of four main investor related factors on the investment process which should be studied in future research motives background resources and personal characteristics

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

technology policy and global warming why new policy models are needed or why putting new wine in old bottles won t work in recent years the threat of global climate change has come to be seen as one of the most serious confronting humanity to meet this challenge will require the development of new technologies and the substantial improvement of existing ones as well as ensuring their prompt and widespread deployment some have argued that the urgency of the situation requires a manhattan project or an apollo program this paper examines why such a policy model is inappropriate arguing that the nature of the policy context for confronting climate change necessitates a different kind of technology policy than that for building an atomic bomb or for achieving a manned lunar landing instead it seeks to draw lessons from three sectors that seem to be more pertinent and where government technological development and deployment programs have been pursued with some success in the united states namely agriculture biomedical research and information technology it compares and contrasts these with the policies pursued with regard to the first two of these sectors in the united kingdom the paper concludes by drawing out the implications for the design of policies supporting technological development and innovation to address the problem of global climate change

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

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

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

mobilizing private finance to drive an energy industrial revolution abstract while uptake of renewable energies as a solution to climate change is widely discussed the issue of public vs private financing is not yet adequately explored the debates over the kyoto protocol and its successor culminating in the cop15 climate change conference in copenhagen in december 2009 maintained a strong preference for public over private financing yet it is also clear to most observers that the energy revolution will never happen without the involvement of private finance to drive private investment in this viewpoint we discuss the ways in which private financing could be mobilized to drive the energy industrial revolution that is needed if climate change mitigation is to succeed

exploring the link between products and services in low income markets evidence from solar home systems one of the key challenges of energy access in emerging markets and developing countries is how to reach households and communities that are unlikely to get a grid connection in the long term or those that are connected to the grid but suffer from regular blackouts or low voltage by surveying entrepreneurs selling solar home systems shss on a commercial basis in emerging and developing countries this study is one of the first attempts to quantify the key elements of four potential product service systems psss cash credit leasing and fee for service whereas the fee for service approach was found to be suitable only under certain conditions all psss share two key elements for successful market deployment one or more years of maintenance and customer support in financing these customers new asset moreover it appears that private sector companies are in principle able to deliver shss to households with incomes greater than usd 1000 per year the implications for policy makers and development aid agencies are first to include maintenance services into public programmes or public private partnerships and second to explicitly consider financial risks for entrepreneurs e g customer commitment and repayment conditions

local implementation for green manufacturing technology diffusion policy in china from the user firms perspectives abstract in recent years china has started to change its growth strategy to a more sustainable model in response to the limits to growth dilemma specifically the national policy advocates to promote the use of green manufacturing technologies through demonstration projects and to incentivize chinese manufacturers to adopt these green technologies that are also encouraged by local governments these green technologies can increase the economic gains of manufacturers by reducing costs on energy consumption and shift away from selling low margin products however the local authorities often encounter obstacles when implementing policies for promoting these technologies among manufacturing firms this paper explores the factors that affect the decision making of user firms throughout the policy implementation process based on the econometric analysis of the survey for china s electric motors upgrading project in guangdong province this study shows that three key factors are helpful in the local government s effort to implement the national project i e manufacturers awareness the understanding of the energy efficiency technology and the long term macroeconomic benefits in addition encouraging the participation of financial institutions is especially useful for local governments to convince small and medium sized firms these findings are beneficial for local implementation of green manufacturing technology diffusion policies in china and have worldwide policy implication as well

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

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 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

small streams diverse sources who invests in renewable energy in finland during the financial downturn this article addresses the investment gap in renewable energy sources identified by several authors examining the case of a country finland which introduced policy measures to diversify its renewable energy portfolio we analyse the development of investments in renewable heat and power in response to new policy measures and contextual factors during the downturn period 2009 2013 we investigate investor heterogeneity i e the diversity of logics employed by different types of res investors in spite of a severe financial recession we find an emergence of new sources of investment among these new investor types we find diversity in investment drivers and available options these include investors mobilized by the feed in tariff to seek profitable targets and investors such as real estate owners investing in heat pumps for their own use and benefiting from low interest rates we find that the diversification of investors supports the diversification in res sources and brings in new investors undeterred by the financial downturn our findings imply that policy makers should recognize that the responses to distinct incentives and pressures vary by investor types this also means that a mix of policies is required to maximize the contribution of different sectors to filling the renewable energy investment gap

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

determinants of renewable energy development in the eu countries a 20 year perspective abstract the objective of the paper is to identify factors which determine energy policy in the eu countries in the middle of 1990s this objective is achieved in three stages first the changes in the distribution of res in 26 eu countries in the period between 1995 and 2014 are investigated the analysis demonstrates that over the last 20 years the eu countries diversify the res they use which results in substantial changes in their distribution second the distribution of energy sources in 1995 is described as it is assumed that the distribution might be a crucial factor influencing energy policy in each country third several other factors related to energy security environmental concerns economy and politics are considered as potential determinants of renewable energy development two statistical methods of variable selection namely the best subset regression and the lars method reveal that the present in 2014 share of res in the energy mix significantly depends on the condition of the eu countries in the middle of 1990s the distribution of energy sources in 1995 is the crucial determinant of renewable energy development countries without their own fossil fuel sources are the ones which develop renewable energy to the greatest extent other important factors boosting re development include gdp per capita concentration of energy supply swi and the costs of consumption of energy obtained from fossil fuels in relation to gdp

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

in the transformation of energy systems what is holding australia back abstract australia has had a strong gdp growth rate is endowed with a diversity of renewable energy resources yet has been unable to unshackle its dependency on fossil fuels our study identifies causes underlying australia s underachievement in its transformation towards a renewable energy economy we apply a combined mixed methods case study and multi criteria analysis to evaluate the greenhouse gas emissions and energy targets policies and programs of four australian prime ministers between 1996 and 2015 we identify four high impact factors that contribute to australia s underachievement the prime minister s political stance on climate and energy is critical in setting the direction of government the absence of target driven policy frameworks results in less effective policy outcomes orderly and cost effective energy system transformation requires bipartisan strategic long term planning and substantial capital investment to provide policy certainty and stability that can induce new investment in renewable technologies and industries energy policy is primarily a political and ideological issue not one driven by underlying economic conditions going forward australia must achieve a bipartisan position on climate and energy policy at both federal and state levels this will provide long term certainty and stability to support investment in renewable energy and so doing achieve international emission reduction obligations

determinants of renewable energy growth a global sample analysis abstract we investigate factors influencing country level renewable energy growth by applying fevd and pcse estimation methods in a unique sample analysis with a longer time series 1990 2010 and a broader sample size of countries including brazil russia india china and south africa than previous studies our results reveal new insights the results suggest that certain government backed energy policies impede renewable energy investments thus implying significant failures in policy design these policies may be failing mainly because of uncertainty and the likelihood of discontinuity weak voluntary approaches are introduced in order to satisfy public demand for more sustainable investments and programmes we find that these may have negative influences on the growth of renewables as well the insight gained is consistent over the estimation methods employed

adoption of solar and wind energy the roles of carbon pricing and aggregate policy support abstract this paper analyzes the roles of policies and preferences in national adoption of solar and wind energy technologies we use cross sectional and panel regressions for both the european union and a broader international sample we find that countries that price carbon emissions have gone on to adopt more solar and wind energy the aggregate level of policy support measured in euros per megawatt hour appears to have been important for solar energy adoption we also find that solar energy adoption has been larger in countries with higher proportions of people concerned about climate change in addition we assess the effects of other key explanators including financial system size and income levels

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

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

factors impacting diverging paths of renewable energy a review abstract considered an essential factor for countries development energy demand is growing worldwide unlike conventional sources the use of renewable energy sources has multiple benefits including increased energy security sustainable economic growth and pollution reduction in particular greenhouse gas emissions nevertheless there is a considerable difference in the share of renewable energy sources in national energy portfolios this study conducts a systematic literature review to identify drivers and barriers which could help understanding the diverging paths of renewable energy deployment for countries among a total of 1431 academic studies 60 qualitative and quantitative studies were identified using a multistage selection process designated manuscripts were explored in detail including publication years length of the studies countries represented and renewable energy sources referenced factors explaining countries renewable energy deployments were defined and organized into seven main categories economic environmental political regulatory social technical potential and technological within these categories economic considerations appeared most frequently across manuscripts while environmental factors were least represented these categories were then classified as drivers barriers or undetermined towards renewable energy deployment based on a one sample proportion statistical test economic environmental and social factors were found to be drivers whereas political regulatory technical potential and technological factors were not classified as either a driver or a barrier i e undetermined each main category contains several subcategories among which only national income was found to have a positive impact whereas all other subcategories were considered undetermined no significant barriers to the deployment of renewable energy sources were found over the analyzed period

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