the renewables portfolio standard in texas an early assessment texas has rapidly emerged as one of the leading wind power markets in the united states this development can be largely traced to a well designed and carefully implemented renewables portfolio standard rps the rps is a new policy mechanism that has received increasing attention as an attractive approach to support renewable power generation though replacing existing renewable energy policies with an as of yet untested approach in the rps is risky early experience from texas suggests that an rps can effectively spur renewables development and encourage competition among renewable energy producers initial rps targets in texas were well exceeded by the end of 2001 with 915 mw of wind installed in that year alone rps compliance costs appear negligible with new wind projects reportedly contracted for well under 3 us cent k wh in part as a result of a 1 7 us cent kwh production tax credit an outstanding wind resource and an rps that is sizable enough to drive project economies of scale obliged retail suppliers have been willing to enter into long term contracts with renewable generators reducing important risks for both the developer and the retail supplier finally the country s first comprehensive renewable energy certificate program has been put into place to monitor and track rps compliance c 2002 published by elsevier science ltd less

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

evaluating the influence of personal relationships on land sale prices a case study in oregon land transactions typically involve substantial personal interaction between buyer and seller despite this fact researchers have made little attempt to determine how personal relationships influence the terms of trade for a property in this study linn county oregon farm land sales from 1992 1997 were examined to better understand and quantify the influences of personal relationships transactions between relatives and neighbors involved special considerations with greater frequency than did those between strangers and acquaintances transactions between parent and child and between neighbors brought significantly less than sales between strangers transactions resulting from a realtor or advertisement sold at a significant premium

assessing the performance of renewable electricity support instruments abstract the performance of feed in tariffs and tradable certificates is assessed on criteria of efficacy efficiency equity and institutional feasibility in the early stage of transition to an energy system based entirely on renewable energy supplies renewable electricity can only thrive if support takes into account the specific technical economic and political problems which result from embedding this electricity in conventional power systems whose technology organizational structure environmental responsibility and general mission differ profoundly from the emerging renewable based system support schemes need to capture the diversity of power supplies the variable nature of some renewable supplies and their different attributes for the purposes of public policy they must take into account the variety of generators including small decentralized generation emerging in a renewable based system and the new relationships between generators and customers renewable energy policies need a clear point of reference because the incumbent power systems are not sustainable they must adapt to the requirements of the renewable ones not the other way round incumbent systems carry the responsibility of paying the transition something that corresponds best with the polluter pays principle

performance evaluation of renewable energy support policies applied on flanders tradable certificates system abstract the article is composed as a diptych first a general framework of criteria to evaluate the performance of renewable energy support systems is elaborated it is built around the main criteria effectiveness efficiency and equity all three are multi layered and specifying the contents of the various layers is case dependent second the framework is applied on detailed data about the flemish tradable certificates support system several salient conclusions confirm observations from research in other countries causing growing awareness first most crucial is a careful and detailed qualification of renewable energy sources and technologies without even effectiveness is not reliably measurable second nearby targets of renewable energy output must follow from a clearly designed transition trajectory towards a sustainable electricity sector such transition is intertwined with an industrial technological policy for bringing the necessary technologies to development and maturity third if the above two prerequisites are overridden certificates systems abound of excess profits predominantly reaped by incumbent power companies being not the best agents of real change to a sustainable energy future

germany s solar cell promotion dark clouds on the horizon abstract this article demonstrates that the large feed in tariffs currently guaranteed for solar electricity in germany constitute a subsidization regime that threatens to reach a level comparable to that of german hard coal production a notoriously outstanding example of misguided political intervention yet as a consequence of the coexistence of the german renewable energy sources act eeg and the eu emissions trading scheme ets the increased use of renewable energy technologies does not imply any additional emission reductions beyond those already achieved by ets alone similarly disappointing is the net employment balance which is likely to be negative if one takes into account the opportunity cost of this form of solar photovoltaic pv support along the lines of the international energy agency iea 2007 energy policies of iea countries germany 2007 review international energy agency oecd paris p 77 we recommend the immediate and drastic reduction of the magnitude of the feed in tariffs granted for solar based electricity ultimately producing electricity on this basis is among the most expensive greenhouse gas abatement options

the impact of systemic factors on the deployment of cooperative projects within renewable electricity production an international comparison while cooperative organizations created with the aim to initiate develop and operate renewable electricity re projects have received attention for their roles in the transition to a sustainable

estimation using contingent valuation data from a dichotomous choice with follow up questionnaire reply abstract our original article proposed that the two yes no willingness to pay wtp responses produced by this survey format should be viewed as a pair of jointly distributed correlated discrete random variables the comparison model the conventional approach to estimation using these types of data contained a programming error correction alters the results from the comparison model but our original claim that estimation by conventional methods can produce misleading inferences if ours is the appropriate specification still stands this is especially true if negative wtp is precluded when e wtp is calculated

renewable energy growth and the financial performance of electric utilities a panel data study abstract electric utilities are under pressure to increase clean energy production although the adoption of renewable energy can improve the utilities environmental performance a fundamental question is if it also pays in economic terms building on the natural resource based view of the firm we answer this question using two data analysis methods first we carry out a regression analysis of panel data from 66 large electric utilities covering the period 2005 2014 applying both a fixed and random effects estimator subsequently we use the granger causality test to explore possible causality links our results show a negative correlation at the firm level between renewable energy increase and short term as well as long term financial performance more specifically we find that an increase in renewable energy penetration granger causes a reduction of long term performance however the results also show that a firm s carbon intensity moderates the relationship when the focus is on the country level we find that an increase in renewable power penetration is also negatively correlated to long term firm performance which might be explained by the combined effect of low power demand and overcapacity in developed economies we conclude that the concept of organizational ambidexterity may supplement the natural resource based view of the firm for a better understanding of the relationship between an increase in renewable power and a firm s profitability

towards a sustainable electrification in ghana a review of renewable energy deployment policies abstract ghana has been facing perennial power rationing over the years due to fuel supply challenges the country s energy system is likely to suffer additional strain from rising energy demand fueled by population growth rapid urbanization and economic development fortunately there are enormous renewable energy resources which can provide sustainable electrification as backbone to socioeconomic development while curbing global warming ghana s energy strategy targets 100 access to electricity and 10 share of sustainable power in national generation mix by 2020 despite the existence of numerous policies and a renewable energy act current contribution of non conventional renewable energy to electricity generation is less than 1 the right mix of policies to address the unique domestic conditions and achieve its specific development goals remains insufficient this study reviews the regulatory framework financing incentives and other provisions of ghana s renewable energy act it critically examines the policy s strengths weaknesses opportunities and treats based on comparative analysis and lessons drawn from failed and successful implementation of similar policies around the world the study also assesses the impact of policy on project development it was found that the performance of ghana s renewable energy policy on grid connected electricity has been poor compared to its target the fundamental reasons for this unsatisfactory performance may be attributed to partial implementation of policies lack of market driven support schemes lack of pricing policy framework weak grid network limited access to funds and inconsistencies in renewable energy development strategies this study proposes the following countermeasures i ghana should comprehensively harmonize renewable energy regulatory and fiscal policies with domestic electricity pricing regime ii market driven support schemes should be prioritized for cost effectiveness and minimum governmental influence these reforms can help eliminate some of the major barriers to sustainable electrification in ghana while the lessons provide a learning curve for other african countries

regulating technological change the strategic reactions of utility companies towards subsidy policies in the german spanish and uk electricity markets abstract this paper focuses on how incumbent electric utilities strategically react to subsidy schemes supporting renewable energy technologies in the uk germany and spain firms coordinate the development of their technological capabilities and their political activities to shape their regulatory environment analysing the diffusion of wind power in these countries we show that the different ways in which firms coordinate their technological and political strategies lead to very different market outcomes both for the firms market share and the size of the overall market although incumbents are usually seen as being resistant to change in energy systems we show that spanish utilities proactively drive the diffusion of wind power we speculate about the relation between the ownership structure of the energy system and its inertia with respect to the integration of new technologies we derive novel policy implications that explicitly take into account the strategic actions of incumbent firms shaping the technological and regulatory system

spatial valuation of forests environmental assets an application to andalusian silvopastoral farms we develop a model that estimates spatially allocated environmental asset values for the simultaneous provision of seven ecosystem services we examine the effect of heterogeneous spatial and economic factors on asset figures and identify potential forestry abandonment problems when continuing with forestry activity becomes unprofitable for the landowner our results show a relevant spatial variability according to forest species distribution and structure we examine potential trade offs among silvopastoral provisioning services water and carbon sequestration services results forecast the abandonment of forestry activity and quantify the significant impact of discount rates and prices on asset values

social and private total hicksian incomes of multiple use forests in spain abstract the present national accounting system for forests measures only the commercial flows of the production account and the consumption of durable goods produced by human intervention and focuses particularly on final output while ignoring any intermediate output not arising from harvested agricultural crops environmental goods and services whether for public consumption or for the landowner s private use owner s self consumption are ignored in conventional measurements of the net domestic product of forests this paper presents and applies a forest accounting methodology that overcomes these limitations and allows for homogeneous aggregation of commercial and environmental values using exchange values and not welfare measurements for the latter we have applied the accounting system proposed here to two major types of multiple use forest of the iberian peninsula mediterranean forest monfrague cork oak dehesa and conifer forest scottish pine in the guadarrama mountain range our results show that non commercial incomes are relatively more important in the pine forest under consideration both in private and in social terms cork oak forest is notably more profitable in private terms than pine forest however conventional national accounting measures only 24 and 77 of social total income in guadarrama scottish forest and monfrague cork oak dehesa respectively

financial sustainability of wind electricity sectors in the baltic states abstract the baltic states realize the necessity to develop wind electricity sectors this comes from the baltic states concern of energy security competitiveness and sustainable development of energy sectors the paper deals with the financial aspects of sustainability of wind electricity sector namely it aims at performing a comparative analysis of financial sustainability of companies producing electricity from wind resources in the baltic states during 2009 2013 the financial statement analysis method is employed and the financial ratio technique is used altman liss and tafler bankruptcy forecasting models are used to show both health and viability of the companies 4 groups of financial ratios are computed financial leverage profitability liquidity and assets utilization support schemes are recognized as a relevant factor influencing on the financial sustainability the results of the analysis revealed that financial sustainability of the companies is moderate in the baltic states lithuania and estonia use high share of debt 80 85 to finance economic activity whereas latvian companies use relatively high share of equity capital 35 40 this shows that credit risk is available in the companies liquidity of the companies decreases operational efficiency is higher in estonia and lithuania than in latvia when profitability indicators are analyzed during the latter several years efficiencies of assets utilization were similar in the baltic states the efficiency of current assets utilization is higher compared to efficiency of non current assets utilization companies in latvia demonstrate middle but increasing and in estonia high but reducing bankruptcy probabilities lithuanian case reveals that bankruptcy probability varies from high to low depending on the financial ratios analyzed however bankruptcy probability reduces companies should make liquidity solvency efficient use of assets and profitability management as a part of their corporate management policy framework

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

electricity prices large scale renewable integration and policy implications abstract this paper investigates the effects of intermittent solar and wind power generation on electricity price formation in germany we use daily data from 2010 to 2015 a period with profound modifications in the german electricity market the most notable being the rapid integration of photovoltaic and wind power sources as well as the phasing out of nuclear energy in the context of a garch in mean model we show that both solar and wind power granger cause electricity prices that solar power generation reduces the volatility of electricity prices by scaling down the use of peak load power plants and that wind power generation increases the volatility of electricity prices by challenging electricity market flexibility

advertising media strategies in the film industry the primary aim of this article is to estimate the multiple determinants of film advertising expenditures in four important media namely television press outdoor and radio in the uk first television advertising the leading film advertising medium is examined as part of a system of equations capturing the interdependences between advertising the number of screens on which films are initially shown and box office revenues then a reduced form model is put forward to reveal the determinants of film advertising in the four media while major distribution companies have different preferences for the use of the alternative advertising media results highlight the importance of quality signals such as critical reviews in determining advertising expenditures in the film industry moreover advertising expenditures can themselves be considered to offer potential cinema goers signals of film quality

security justice and the energy crossroads assessing the implications of the nuclear phase out in germany abstract the nuclear melt down in fukushima resulted in diverging energy policy decisions across the world where germany decided to opt out of nuclear electricity production yet the government s decision making framework for energy policy decisions does not accurately reflect important drivers for the strategy change this paper presents the energy crossroads framework as a more comprehensive tool to analyse the drivers and impacts of the nuclear phase out 20 expert interviews were performed across business participants as well as policy makers in the national and international energy context results show that germany has adopted an environmental justice rather than energy security stance in their nuclear phase out policy with significant long term consequences

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

are renewable energy subsidies effective evidence from europe abstract we test if policy support for renewable electricity have been effective in promoting renewables in the five largest european countries in the period 2000 2010 we collect data on the exact amount of monetary incentives and the average tariffs granted the econometric analysis reveals a positive correlation between subsidies and the production of incentivized energy as well as the installed capacity we find that a 1 1c increase in the incentive tariff leads to an increase in renewable generation of 0 4 1 18 26 feed in tariffs appear to outperform tradable green certificates overall the analysis shows that these policies have been effective in promoting renewable energy both in the short and in the long run

cost effectiveness as energy policy mechanisms the paradox of technology neutral and technology specific policies in the short and long term when choosing policy mechanisms to design and deploy energy policies policymakers typically seek cost effective ones linking cost effectiveness to the lowest cost of support for res e generation and or consumer costs the objectives of this paper are to analyze the cost effectiveness of renewable portfolio standards rps feed in tariffs fit and auctions in the short and long term considering both technology neutral and technology specific approaches results show that rps and auctions are more cost effective than feed in tariffs fit in the short term if cost effectiveness is defined as minimizing consumer costs also if one or more emerging technologies with higher levelized life cycle costs lcc low cumulative production and high experience elasticity are considered in the pool of res e policy design a technology neutral approach in the short term could lock out these emerging technologies avoiding a long term lcc reduction in this case a technology specific policy used in the short term would reflect lower total generation policy costs in the long term if compared with a technology neutral policy in both short and long term this paper calls this phenomenon the paradox of technology neutral and technology specific policies in the long term considering the results this paper suggests a mix of technology neutral and technology specific policies using rps or auction mechanisms to promote res e

on the intergenerational allocation of natural resources it is known hartwick and others that under standard assumptions a society that invests in reproducible capital the competitive rents on its current extraction of exhaustible resources will enjoy a consumption stream constant in time it is shown here that this result can be interpreted as saying that an appropriately defined stock of capital including the initial endowment of resources is being maintained intact and that consumption can be interpreted as the interest on that patrimony this seems like a useful rule of thumb for policy

a new paradigm for valuing non market goods using referendum data maximum likelihood estimation by censored logistic regression abstract this paper challenges the w m hanemann amer j agr econom 66 332 341 1984 and c sellar j p chavas and j r stoll j environ econom management 13 382 390 1986 utilizations of logit models to estimate the value of non market resources from referendum survey data these data are more informative than conventional choice data the random utility interpretation of logit models is therefore too restrictive bypassing the utility function entirely it will be shown that parameters and standard errors for utility theoretic inverse hicksian demand functions can be extracted directly and much more simply estimated demand functions need not be limited to those corresponding to the linear in parameters utility difference specifications which can be handled by packaged logit programs

nonconventional renewable energy governance in brazil lessons to learn from the german experience abstract this paper presents a comparative analysis of energy governance regarding nonconventional renewable energy sources ncres in brazil and germany brazil is a world leader in the use of conventional renewable energy sources such as hydro power while germany has been achieving outstanding results in fostering ncres the focus is on two critical issues the legal and regulatory framework and the institutions created to support the ncres market development the comparison shows that despite the very different energy situations and policy drivers valuables lessons can be extracted from the german experience the main lesson for brazil is to think ncres as a strategic opportunity to rely less on fossil fuel and large hydroelectric power plants to decentralize the electric power sector to use the huge solar biomass and wind power potential available in the country and to create a environment friendly ncres industry to this end three critical points were identified 1 the legal and regulatory framework should be improved 2 long term energy planning taking into account social economic and climate issues and 3 the current institutions supporting ncres in brazil should be upgraded and or new ones such as more specific energy agencies should be created

what lessons have been learned in reforming the renewables obligation an analysis of internal and external failures in uk renewable energy policy abstract despite operating a delivery programme for res e since 1990 uk targets and policy goals have not been achieved in response the government reformed the ro this article re examines uk renewable energy policy by analysing the internal and external failures of the various mechanisms to determine if government has learnt from previous experience in reforming the ro government did not learn from their own actions during the nffo ro transition evidenced by high levels of similarity in internal external failures the reformed ro is expected to significantly increase deployment has provided a renewables package by comprehensively addressing both internal external failures but major internal failures price financial risk still remain resulting in contiguous failures over two decades and two mechanism changes nffo ro ro reformed ro success will again be heavily dependent on a select few technologies and new untested measures to combat external failures mechanism extension to 2037 is probably the single most important factor underlying potential deployment increases however introducing a fit like system via the sheer number of bolt on reforms to counter policy failures indicates loss of direction and clarity overall although government appears to have learnt some of its lessons from the past two decades significant doubt remains whether renewable energy policy objectives will be met via the latest mechanism change

the influence of expert reviews on consumer demand for experience goods a case study of movie critics an inherent problem in measuring the influence of expert reviews on the demand for experience goods is that a correlation between good reviews and high demand may be spurious induced by an underlying correlation with unobservable quality signals using the timing of the reviews by two popular movie critics siskel and ebert relative to opening weekend box office revenue we apply a difference in differences approach to circumvent the problem of spurious correlation after purging the spurious correlation the measured influence effect is smaller though still detectable positive reviews have a particularly large influence on the demand for dramas and narrowly released movies

macro economic analysis of forestry options on carbon sequestration in india the forestry sector provides a number of climate change mitigation options apart from this ecological benefit it has significant social and economic relevance implementation of forestry options requires large investments and sustained long term planning thus there is a need for a detailed analysis of forestry options to understand their implications on stock and flow of carbon required investments value of forest wealth contribution to gnp and livelihood demand management employment and foreign trade there is a need to evaluate the additional spending on forestry by analysing the environmental particularly carbon abatement social and economic benefits the biomass needs for india are expected to increase by two to three times by 2020 depending upon the forest types ownership patterns and land use patterns feasible forestry options are identified it is found among many supply options to be feasible to meet the demand based needs with a mix of management options species choices and organisational set up a comparative static framework is used to analyze the macro economic impacts forestry accounts for 1 84 of gnp in india it is characterized by significant forward industrial linkages and least backward linkage forestry generates about 36 million person years of employment annually india imports rs 15 billion worth of forest based materials annually implementation of the demand based forestry options can lead to a number of ecological economic and institutional changes the notable ones are enhancement of c stock from 9578 to 17 094 mt and a net annual c sequestration from 73 to 149 mt after accounting for all emissions a trebling of the output of forestry sector from rs 49 billion to rs 146 billion annually an increase in gdp contribution of forestry from rs 32 billion to rs 105 billion over a period of 35 years an increase in annual employment level by 23 million person years emergence of forestry as a net contributor of foreign exchange through trading of forestry products and an increase in economic value of forest capital stock by rs 7260 billion with a cost benefit analysis showing forestry as a profitable option implementation of forestry options calls for an understanding of current forest policies and barriers which are analyzed and a number of policy options are suggested c 1997 elsevier science b v

simulated exchange values and ecosystem accounting theory and application to free access recreation abstract this paper discusses the simulated exchange value method a practical method to estimate values for goods and services currently outside of the market in a manner consistent with the market based figures considered in national accounts the method proposes to simulate in a partial equilibrium context the price that would occur if a good or service outside of the market such as free access recreation in forests were internalized the method takes into account the demand estimated using non market valuation techniques the supply and the market structure the discussion covers the case of a linear demand and the case in which the demand is estimated using discrete choice methods this paper applies the method to free access recreation in the forests of andalusia in the south of spain and compares the results to those obtained using hicksian variations

a review on promoting share of renewable energy by green trading mechanisms in power system abstract in order to promote the development of renewable energy power generation many countries have issued corresponding policies meanwhile some green trading mechanisms have been implemented in power industry and this paper has mainly presented a review on promoting share of renewable energy by green trading mechanisms in power system with a focus on promotion effects of three mechanisms feed in tariff renewable portfolio standard and emission trading scheme apart from a review summaries comparisons and an outlook for future study are also presented our review suggests that feed in tariff and renewable portfolio standard can effectively increase the share of renewable energy power and lead to renewable resource diversity in addition emission trading also provides stimulus for development of renewable energy besides mitigation of carbon emission

accounting for single and aggregated forest incomes application to public cork oak forests in jerez spain and iteimia tunisia abstract this study presents an applied improvement in the agroforestry accounting system aas approach to two public cork oak forests in the mediterranean region jerez spain and iteimia tunisia both forests have similar environments but differ in land property rights labour markets and countries developed and developing economy respectively the income analysis considers the differences between forest ownership and household and landowner economic rationalities in the case of jerez the public landowner has a right to exclude others from using the forest resources community employment and natural resource conservation criteria determine jerez s management in the iteimia case the public landowner has regulated free use rights for livestock grazing firewood and crops so that local households can meet their needs and improve their income households operate by maximizing their income from the full employment of their own family workforce the results show that jerez s management generates negative commercial capital income for the public landowner despite receiving significant public subsidies while it maintains high internal forestry investment that generates additional local employment conversely iteimia produces positive commercial capital income for the public landowner and high household self employed labour income per hectare

national accounts and environmental resources in the paper optimal growth theory is used to derive the appropriate definition of the net national product concept when there are environmental resources and environmental damage to take into account the basic conclusions are that conventional defined np should be corrected by deducting environmental damage and adding the value of the net change of all resources

the progressive inefficiency of replacing renewable obligation certificates with contracts for differences in the uk electricity market abstract this paper looks at the emerging risk return profile for new renewable assets as a conventional wholesale electricity market progressively decarbonises using a detailed fundamental model of price formation risks under increasing replacement of fossil fuel facilities with onshore and offshore wind we show that the risk return profile becomes less attractive over time and may therefore need sustained and possibly increasing policy support furthermore we show that green certificate trading may become progressively more attractive as a supplementary support to wholesale prices compared to fixed feed in tariffs this is because the increasingly negative correlation between renewable output and wholesale prices reduces its revenue risk compared to fixed feed in tariffs if other factors remain constant and thereby improves conventional financial performance risk metrics in particular this suggests that the recent energy policy change in britain to move away from green certificates and into contracts for differences may have been ill founded

ecosystem services and regional development an application to sweden this study carries out interregional comparisons of development and sustainable use of natural capital with and without inclusion of non marketed ecosystem services a simple dynamic model of an open economy shows that appropriate adjustment of conventional income accounts includes flow and stock components but excludes explicit entrance of pollution calculations are made for swedish regions and for two types of ecosystem services pollution sequestration and recreational services provided by three types of ecosystems forests agricultural landscape and wetlands when comparing the adjusted and non adjusted regional income accounts it is shown that the two measurements generate significantly different pictures of regional income and growth regions that are traditionally considered as relatively less growth promoting are shown to hold important sources of wealth from natural capital while counties that are rich in conventional accounts fall behind when adjusting for values of changes in natural capital

pros and cons of exposing renewables to electricity market risks a comparison of the market integration approaches in germany spain and the uk abstract the article examines how renewable electricity res e producers are integrated into the electricity market under the support legislations and regulatory frameworks of germany spain and the uk focus is on wind power which faces the highest market integration challenge of all res e the analysis shows that the three countries follow contrasting approaches of exposing res e producers to the market risks of forward electricity markets balancing markets and system planning requirements risk exposure is highest in the uk and lowest in germany from a policy maker s perspective there is a trade off between a high risk and a low risk approach when res e face high market risks a higher level of financial support is required to stimulate res e development than in a low risk environment but the exposure to market risks may also give an incentive to make efficient use of the respective market thus limiting the indirect costs to society the special characteristics of wind energy however put natural limits to the response of wind power plants to market prices and locational price signals and will increasingly influence electricity markets and grid infrastructure these interdependencies should be recognised in the design of res e policies and market regulations

green accounting in imperfect market economies the idea of measuring the national welfare level by using the green nnp net national product has gained much attention lately this paper summarizes the research on social accounting in imperfect market economies by putting the results into a unified framework the main contribution of the paper is to relate the form of the national welfare measure to the functioning of the economic system and therefore to explicitly address the informational requirements implicit in social accounting

solar feed in tariffs and the merit order effect a study of the german electricity market abstract this study investigates the merit order effect moe of the recent years implementation of solar power in germany market clearing electricity prices and production levels are compared for the years 2009 2011 and a model for the relationship between the electricity price and price sensitive electricity production is developed and applied to predict electricity prices in germany from july 2010 to july 2011 with and without solar electricity generation seg the results show that the seg has caused a 7 reduction in average electricity prices for this period the average daily maximum price and daily price variation are also found to decrease by 13 and 23 respectively when taking the moe into account the net consumer s cost of the solar feed in tariff fit system is found to be 23 less than the charge listed in the electricity bill the german fit policy for solar power has been subject to considerable public debate and a common argument brought up in disfavor of the system is the high cost for the consumers in this study we demonstrate the importance of including the moe when evaluating the total costs and benefits of the fit policy mechanism

learning from experience the development of the renewables obligation in england and wales 2002 2010 abstract the uk has enviable renewable resources both onshore wind and offshore wind wave and tidal the offshore valuation group 2010 the government has had policy mechanisms in place since 1990 to encourage these resources to be developed the current mechanism the renewables obligation ro was specifically designed to emphasise competition and therefore to fit in with the uk s overall strategic approach to energy policy however as yet it has not delivered the capacity that it was designed to do and as a result the uk faces a difficult challenge in attempting to meet european wide renewable energy targets for 2020 as well as longer term decarbonisation targets this paper explores some of the major reasons why the ro has performed so poorly to date and considers the prospects for improvement up to 2020 it concludes that the strategic emphasis on competition in the support mechanisms has played a key role in limiting renewables development but that the mechanism has changed significantly since it was introduced however these changes together with proposals for electricity market reform still do not address important elements of risk in comparison with a standard feed in tariff

factors influencing kansas agricultural farm land values land transactions typically involve a substantial investment of time and money for parties involved in the sale because of the size of the investment and infrequency of purchases sales significant personal interaction between buyer and seller often results in this study farmland sales in 104 of 105 kansas counties from 1986 2000 were examined to quantify the influence of personal relationships and changes over time transactions between related parties resulted in a 43 discount on the per acre sales price results indicated that social capital effects have increased over time with the discount on sales between related parties growing 2 per year

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

national account of timber and forest environmental resources in sweden this paper outlines an extension of the national account of income from forest resources in sweden 1987 incorporating changes in timber inventories production of nonmarketed timber and nontimber goods and depletion or improvement in vital environmental stocks such as soil nutrients biodiversity and carbon sinks the total net value added provided by forest resources and forestry labour 1987 is estimated to 22 billions sek this is one third more than the contribution of forestry to ordinary gnp

monetary accounting of ecosystem services a test case for limburg province the netherlands ecosystem accounting aims to provide a better understanding of ecosystem contributions to the economy in a spatially explicit way ecosystem accounting monitors ecosystem services and measures their monetary value using exchange values consistent with the system of national accounts sna we pilot monetary ecosystem accounting in a case study in limburg province the netherlands seven ecosystem services are modelled and valued crop production fodder production drinking water production air quality regulation carbon sequestration nature tourism and hunting we develop monetary ecosystem accounts that specify values generated by ecosystem services per hectare per municipality and per land cover type we analyse the relative importance of public and private ecosystem services we found that the sna aligned monetary value of modelled ecosystem services for limburg was around 112 million in 2010 with an average value of 508 per hectare ecosystem services with the highest values were crop production nature tourism and fodder production due to the exclusion of consumer surplus in sna valuation calculated values are considerably lower than those typically found in welfare based valuation approaches we demonstrate the feasibility of valuing ecosystem services in a national accounting framework

an operative framework for total hicksian income measurement application to a multiple use forest a methodology for estimating total hicksian income in multiple use forests is presented the approach consistently incorporates commercial as well as non commercial economic values and enables the measurement of national accounting aggregates taking into account variation in man made and natural capital innovative solutions are developed i for the estimation of non market values such as recreation where an attempt to determine exchange values has been made simulating markets ii for timber where standing timber valuation methods have been extended to cover uneven stands and iii for carbon fixation valuation where only permanently fixed carbon after 1990 has been taken into account the methodology is applied to a multiple use pinewood in the guadarrama mountains near madrid spain timber cattle grazing hunting recreation carbon fixation and conservation values are measured and integrated in the accounting system using primary microeconomic data from the case study results indicate the importance of non commercial income which accounts for 51 of the total income and the social relevance of the analysed forest implying that only 31 of the total income generated is appropriated by the forest owner

network charging and residential tariffs a case of household photovoltaics in the united kingdom abstract currently about one million households in the united kingdom uk have installed solar photovoltaic pv panels with about two thirds of them are using the panels for self generating power according to the uk department of energy climate change solar pv deployment in the uk measured in megawatt has grown considerably from 95 mw in 2010 when the feed in tariff was introduced to 11 429 mw in 2016 the popularity of the solar pv among the uk households made the government to introduce major changes to the scheme our paper focuses on the two major questions could it be that the system already favours richer consumers or certain types of network user who do not bear either the efficient or fair share of the total system distribution and transmission costs does the apportionment of charges between fixed per kw peak and per kwh use of system charges need to be changed to be more cost reflective we employ the data from the smart meters readings provided by the customer led network revolution monitoring trial conducted with the 199 households in the northern england that provides the data for the household electricity use and tariff behaviour between october 2012 and july 2014 our analysis demonstrates that similar to other studies conducted around the world the increase in the solar pv resulted in a transfer of wealth and costs between customer groups due to their own production uk solar pv consumers yield a lower share of the per kwh costs of the distribution system which leads to the increase of per unit charges as well as the changes in the distribution of their payment between different types of households

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

is the answer blowin in the wind auctions an assessment of the italian support scheme abstract this article proposes a quantitative data based assessment of the onshore wind auctions conducted in italy from 2012 to 2016 our objective is to provide new insights in the ongoing debate on policy measures to promote renewable energy sources italian wind auction design is examined by firstly investigating its overall outcomes in terms of cost efficiency and policy effectiveness determinants affecting awarded tariffs are then empirically analysed further to explore the role of project related and firm specific factors as well as different auction design elements the extreme simplicity of the auction design undoubtedly has promoted competition encouraging many project developers to bid and reducing support both in static and dynamic terms results provide evidence that localisation factors did not constitute a competitive constraint from a policy perspective the administratively setting of ceiling prices is a major issue when wind resources are widely available and auctioned capacity is not sufficiently high while not limiting competition the effects of pre qualification criteria on the realisation rate deserve further analysis however doubts emerge on the policy effectiveness of the current support scheme which makes difficult to control the total amount of support provided thus likely causing stop and go cycles of financing and potentially favouring distorted bidding behaviour

when outcomes are the reflection of the analysis criteria a review of the tradable green certificate assessments abstract the tradable green certificates tgc framework is a prevalent policy support scheme enacted to stimulate investments in electricity from renewable energy sources res e in several countries including sweden and norway the tgc framework is currently under reevaluation in this process academic literature plays a crucial role in reflecting the outcomes of this policy framework the outcomes however are often limited by the analysis criteria which reflect what has been accounted for or disregarded when assessing the performance of the tgc framework the analysis criteria also stress what is considered as a successful outcome given the importance of such criteria this paper presents an extensive and systemic literature review of academic publications assessing the performance of the tgc framework the findings are to provide an overview of the publications analysis criteria and outline their outcomes we also provide descriptive statistics for the publications and examine the average citation record of the publications that use various analysis criteria in order to explore their relative impact on later studies these findings can help policymakers put the assessments into perspective when reevaluating a country s tgc system they also suggest several intriguing directions for future studies in this field

natural resources national accounting and economic depreciation abstract the current value hamiltonian in an aggregate optimal growth problem with heterogeneous capital stocks including exhaustible renewable and environmental stocks is the nnp function routine substitutions reveal that the using up of natural resource stocks is representable as easy to interpret economic depreciation magnitudes we obtain true nnp inclusive of natural resource stock diminution implications for actual national accounting practices are also discussed

demand pull instruments and the development of wind power in europe a counterfactual analysis renewable energy technologies are called to play a crucial role in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions since most of these technologies did not yet reach grid parity public policies have been implemented in order to foster their deployment the approach that has been privileged in europe is the demand pull approach that aims at creating a demand for these new technologies and at stimulating their diffusion this paper examines the effect of demand pull policies on the diffusion of onshore wind power technology in six european countries denmark france germany italy portugal and spain in a first step a micro founded model of diffusion is calibrated in order to replicate the observed diffusion of wind power in these six countries in a second step a counterfactual analysis is conducted by investigating several scenarios by taking into account the complex self sustained dynamics of diffusion and the learning spillovers that operate in the wind power sector we can derive several insights about demand pull policies first the impact of a demand pull policy on the diffusion of wind power is determined by the stage at which it comes to support it the effect seems to be stronger at the beginning of the diffusion second international spillovers do operate in the wind power sector these international spillovers however are not strong enough to foster the diffusion of wind power in a country having no demand pull support we can derive from these two statements that a strategy consisting in not implementing any demand pull policy with the expectation that international spillovers will reduce the cost of wind power and foster the diffusion of the technology that then shall become competitive is not a good option for a country targeting a high share of wind power in its energy mix

concentration in the european electricity industry the internal market as solution abstract this article offers an analysis of the present competitive and regulatory framework of the european electricity sector and the results achieved with the liberalisation process considering the reactions of incumbents to the liberalisation the focus in this work is mainly on the problem of market concentration in the sector the new trends toward the creation of national champions as well as recent mergers between gas suppliers and electricity producers raise serious concerns about abuses of market power and risk of future collusion in particular the strategic linkage of existing markets and the expansion into new ones are analyzed in the light of the multimarket contact theory considering investment in interconnection among member states the internal market issue is investigated as a solution to the risks coming from liberalisation

accounting for cultural heritage a theoretical and empirical exploration with focus on swedish reindeer husbandry the aim of this paper is to explore some of the theoretical and empirical aspects of an economy which includes cultural capital we use a simple dynamic growth model and the concept of a social acc

impacts of consumptive demand on rural land values justified based solely on returns to agricultural production an extensive body of literature has arisen to explain the discrepancy between the agricultural productive and market values of rural land various explanations have been offered some authors have emphasized effects of government tax credit and income and price support programs on land values reinsel and reinsel harris boehlje and griffin others have proposed that high rural land values may be explained partly by expectations of increases in commodity prices or annual net returns to land klinefelter chavas and shumway melichar suggested that expected capital gains in addition to net returns from agricultural production should be considered and castle and hoch point out that capitalized rent explains only about half of real estate values both in the 1970s and over the longer 1920 78 period the remainder can be explained by the capitalization of capital gains including real gains or losses from price level changes p 8 brown and brown recently proposed that it is optimal for each seller to have a reservation price in excess of the value he attaches to the future stream of income attributable to owning the land if he thinks that some potential buyers may be more optimistic than he p 164 although the above explanations account for much of the discrepancy between the agricultural productive and market value of rural land this paper concentrates on the proposition that land is not only an input into agricultural production but is also an important argument in many individuals utility functions there is a consumptive value associated with ownership of rural land reflecting innate desires to own land live in a rural environment obtain or maintain the lifestyle of a farmer or rancher engage in outdoor recreation get back to nature and partake of any other real or perceived benefits of rural land ownership many investors seek an investment t y can touch feel experience and enjoy they may al o expect to be able to sell the land to other investors who have similar feelings for the land

a blueprint for success in the us film industry this article analyses motion picture box office gross revenue using a cross section of films from 1997 to 2001 the dependent variable is total domestic box office revenue the independent variables investigated include production budget peak number of screens that the film was shown on in theaters consumer price index for movie tickets personal income season and year of the release in theaters a measure of pre existing audience aggregate critic rating mpaa rating genre word of mouth recommendation the presence of popular stars and the award nominations a distinction is made in the analysis between information available to the public prior to the release of the film in theaters ex ante and information available to the public after the film opens in theaters ex post results for the ex ante ordinary least squares ols regression reveal positive impacts of budget summer and holiday release dates critical reviews sequels and several genres on gross revenue significant positive determina

fostering a renewable energy technology industry an international comparison of wind industry policy support mechanisms this article examines the importance of national and sub national policies in supporting the development of successful global wind turbine manufacturing companies we explore the motivations behind establishing a local wind power industry and the paths that different countries have taken to develop indigenous large wind turbine manufacturing industries within their borders this is done through a cross country comparison of the policy support mechanisms that have been employed to directly and indirectly promote wind technology manufacturing in 12 countries we find that in many instances there is a clear relationship between a manufacturer s success in its home country market and its eventual success in the global wind power market whether new wind turbine manufacturing entrants are able to succeed will likely depend in part on the utilization of their turbines in their own domestic market which in turn will be influenced by the annual size and stability of that market consequently policies that support a sizable stable market for wind power in conjunction with policies that specifically provide incentives for wind power technology to be manufactured locally are most likely to result in the establishment of an internationally competitive wind industry

demand and supply dynamics for sequentially released products in international markets the case of motion pictures we develop an econometric model to study a setting in which a new product is launched first in its domestic market and only at a later stage in foreign markets and where the product s performance demand and availability supply are highly interdependent over time within and across markets integrating literature on international diffusion success breeds success trends and the theatrical motion picture industry the focus of the empirical analysis we develop a dynamic simultanenous equations model of the drivers and interrelationship of the behavior of consumers audiences and retailers exhibitors our findings emphasize the importance of considering the endogeneity and simultaneity of audience and exhibitor behavior and challenge conventional wisdom on the determinants of box office performance which is predominantly based on modeling frameworks that fail to account for the interdependence of performance and availability specifically we find that variables such as movie attributes and advertising expenditures which are usually assumed to influence audiences directly mostly influence revenuesindirectly namely through their impact on exhibitors screen allocations in addition consistent with the idea that the buzz for a movie is perishable we find that the longer is the time lag between releases the weaker is the relationship between domestic and foreign market performance an effect mostly driven by foreign exhibitors screen allocations

are tradable green certificates a cost efficient policy driving technical change or a rent generating machine lessons from sweden 2003 2008 in the european policy debate tradable green certificates tgc have been suggested to be a superior regulatory framework for promoting the diffusion of renewable electricity technologies the purpose of this paper is to assess the performance of the swedish tgc system contributing to the european debate on the suitability of different types of frameworks the expectations of the tgc system were that it would a be effective in terms of increasing the supply of green electricity b do this in a cost effective manner from both a social and a consumer perspective c generate an equitable distribution of costs and benefits and d drive technical change so far it has performed adequately in terms of effectiveness and social cost effectiveness however consumer costs have been substantially higher than expected very large rents are generated and at best it contributes marginally to technical change thus a tgc framework should be selected if the overriding concern is to minimize short term social costs of reaching a certain goal with a high degree of predictability however it cannot be expected to also drive technical change keep consumer costs down and be equitable such trade offs need to be revealed and not obscured by analysts

the policy implications of the different interpretations of the cost effectiveness of renewable electricity support abstract the cost effectiveness of support for renewable electricity is a main criterion to assess the success of policy instruments together with effectiveness the costs of support are also a source of significant concern for governments all over the world however significant confusion exists in the literature on the cost effectiveness of public support for renewable electricity while some authors define the concept of cost effectiveness as that which complies with the equimarginality principle many others including documents from relevant organisations european commission international energy agency intergovernmental panel on climate change define it as the lowest costs of support generally equating it with the minimisation of consumer costs the aim of this paper is to clarify the differences between both approaches and their policy implications regarding the choice of instruments and design elements it is shown that they partly overlap and that their policy implications clearly differ leading to very different policy prescriptions while the former favours technology neutral instruments and design elements the minimisation of consumer costs approach favours instruments and design elements which adjust support levels to the costs of the technologies

the value of remoteness a hedonic estimation of ranchette prices abstract throughout the western united states production ranches are being subdivided into recreation oriented ranchettes this change has dramatic impacts on local environmental and economic viability ranchettes fall in a gap in the economic literature between production agriculture and residential uses this paper presents the first hedonic model for ranchettes introducing the use of remote sensing vegetative indices and the use of sale status of adjacent ranchettes as explanatory variables parcel level sale data in yavapai county arizona is combined with satellite greenness indices it is found that increased greenness raises sale prices access to roads cities and neighbors also increase sale prices implying that isolation is a disamenity and that it may be beneficial for policymakers to encourage ranchette grouping

modeling and analysis of renewable energy obligations and technology bandings in the uk electricity market in the uk electricity market generators are obliged to produce part of their electricity with renewable energy resources in accordance with the renewable obligation order since 2009 technology banding has been added meaning that different technologies are rewarded with a different number of certificates we analyze these two different renewable obligation policies in a mathematical representation of an electricity market with random availabilities of renewable generation outputs and random electricity demand we also present another alternative banding policy we provide revenue adequate pricing schemes for the three obligation policies we carry out a simulation study via sampling a key finding is that the uk banding policy cannot guarantee that the original obligation target is met hence potentially resulting in more pollution our alternative provides a way to make sure that the target is met while supporting less established technologies but it comes with a significantly higher consumer price furthermore as an undesirable side effect we observe that a cost reduction in a technology with a high banding namely offshore wind leads to more co2 emissions under the uk banding policy and to higher consumer prices under the alternative banding policy