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

financing renewable energy infrastructure formulation pricing and impact of a carbon revenue bond abstract renewable energy systems depend on large financial incentives to compete with conventional generation methods market based incentives including state level rec markets and international carbon markets have been proposed as solutions to increase renewable energy investment in this paper we introduce and formulate a carbon revenue bond a financing tool to complement environmental credit markets to encourage renewable energy investment to illustrate its use we value the bond by predicting future revenue using stochastic processes after analyzing historical price data three illustrative examples are presented for renewable energy development in three different markets europe australia and new jersey our findings reveal that the sale of a carbon revenue bond with a ten year maturity can finance a significant portion of a project s initial cost

impacts of wind and solar spatial diversification on its market value a case study of the chilean electricity market abstract renewable energy is expected to become the main electricity source in the world in the coming decades with solar and wind power taking a big share of the energy supply although there has been a remarkable advance on renewable energy technologies their integration is still difficult for regulators market designers and system operators due to the high variability and limited predictability of solar and wind resources measures can be adopted to ease their integration among them geographical diversification there is plenty of literature about the diversification of solar and wind resources and there is a common conclusion greater dispersion smooths out power production however literature on the effects of spatial diversification on the power system electricity prices and renewable energy market value is much scarcer this paper studies the effects of spatial diversification and questions whether integration policies are incentivizing the placement of renewable generators where they provide the highest value to the electricity system in chile using real data and a simplified dispatch model the analysis presented shows evidence of the effects of diversification on wind and solar market value in chile results suggest that spatial diversification has a strong positive effect on the market value of renewable energy especially in scenarios with active transmission and hydro storage constraints wind market value may vary up to us 10 mw h depending on the level of diversification and the spatial and temporal constraints of the system and given current storage capacity of hydro reservoirs the solar market value may increase us 5 mw h due to diversification if transmission capacity is enough even though these results must be observed with caution because they depend on the assumptions made there is an important effect of renewable spatial diversification that should be observed by regulators

wind power price trends in the united states struggling to remain competitive in the face of strong growth the amount of wind power capacity being installed globally is surging with the united states the world leader in terms of annual market share for three years running 2005 2007 the rapidly growing market for wind has been a double edged sword however as the resulting supply demand imbalance in wind turbines along with the rising cost of materials and weakness in the u s dollar has put upward pressure on wind turbine costs and ultimately wind power prices two mitigating factors reductions in the cost of equity provided to wind projects and improvements in project level capacity factors have helped to relieve some of the upward pressure on wind power prices over the last few years because neither of these two factors can be relied upon to further cushion the blow going forward policymakers should recognize that continued financial support may be necessary to sustain the wind sector at its current pace of development at least in the near term though this article emphasizes developments in the u s market for wind power those trends are similar to and hold implications for the worldwide wind power market

focus on situation and policies for biomass power generation in china abstract nowadays china is faced with many issues such as increasing farmers income protecting environment and adjusting energy structure which may be solved by developing the biomass power generation industry however the lack of technical capability inadequate raw materials and challenges for grid feed in are all obstacles that prevent large scale production and industrialization in the biomass power generation industry therefore government should provide necessary policies to support and advance the biomass power generation industry this paper systematically analyzes the current laws regulations and policies implemented recently in china and provides a comprehensive review of the fiscal subsidies reduction and exemption of taxes tariff concessions the policies of investment and financing and the support of r d suggestions for relevant policies are proposed to address the existing problems

do renewable electricity policies promote renewable electricity generation evidence from panel data using the poisson pseudo maximum likelihood estimation technique this paper evaluates the effects of renewable electricity policies on renewable electricity generation using a large panel dataset that covers 122 countries over the period of 1980 2010 the results suggest that renewable electricity policies play a crucial role in promoting renewable electricity generation but their effectiveness is subject to diminishing returns as the number of policies increases there is also evidence that the effects of renewable electricity policies are more pronounced before 1996 as well as in developed and emerging market countries and the negative policy interaction effect fades with the stage of economic development lastly policy effectiveness varies by the type of renewable electricity policy and energy source only investment incentives and feed in tariffs are found to be effective in promoting the development of all types of renewable energy sources for electricity considered in this paper

conceptual framework for regional competitiveness budd l and hirmis a k 2004 conceptual framework for regional competitiveness regional studies38 1007 1020 the concept of territorial competitiveness has gained ground in academic policy and practitioner circles in particular urban competitiveness has generated a large literature however there is a danger that competitiveness at a territorial level becomes a conceptual chimera the essential problem is that territorially based actors and agencies seek to position and maintain the utility of their regions and subregions by reference to a set of measures and indicators that are conceptually suspect and often empirically weak the degree to which regions compete depends on a manifold set of factors the paper proposes a conceptual framework for regional competitiveness based on combining the competitive advantage of firms and the comparative advantage of a regional economy the conceptual transmission mechanism to regional competitiveness combines liebenstein s theory of x inefficiency and aggl

problems of urban decline and growth in eec countries or measuring degrees of elephantness the purpose of this paper is to draw together several strands of literature concerned with the measurement of spatial economic and social differences and then suggest an alternative approach we then apply that approach to classifying the problems of 103 of the largest metropolitan regions in the eec countries in the process this allows us to conceptualise and attempt to quantify urban decline in europe and simultaneously discover the extent to which urban problems in europe are still associated with growth although it is hoped that the paper is infused with some theoretical and analytical insight it is primarily empirical in scope it draws on a small part of a much wider project some of the analytical support particularly the arguments and evidence that support the use of functional urban regions furs as units of analysis and all of the analytical and policy implications are reported on elsewhere 1

making sense of the competitiveness debate the debate over national competitiveness is marked by some basic misperceptions with few exceptions those who use the term have a crude essentially mercantilist view of world trade in which competition among nations is just like competition between corporations not only do the authors and readers of reports on national competitiveness usually not understand comparative advantage they are unaware of the most basic adding up constraints economists however find it hard to believe that seemingly well informed people can really be this naive and assume that there must be more sophisticated ideas lying behind what they say the rationales offered by economists in turn offer false comfort to the would be sophisticates who like the term competitiveness they believe that they have transcended conventional economic theory when the fact is that they have failed to comprehend it in short the actual level of discussion is lower than any of the participants imagines copyright 1996 by oxford university press

extent and types of small scale wind policies in the u s states adoption and effectiveness abstract renewable energy sources including wind are increasingly promoted by u s state governments using state level data and survey responses from energy officials in 44 states this study catalogs the extent and types of small wind policies adopted by states it examines the factors correlated with policy adoption and perceptions about which policy tools are most effective results indicate that 84 of the states participating in the survey have adopted at least one policy to promote small wind technologies and most have adopted several policies the most frequent policy is net metering and this policy tool was also perceived to be one of the most effective at encouraging businesses and consumers to install small wind technologies however several other policy tools perceived to be most effective at promoting small wind installations have been adopted by relatively few states this identified gap suggests opportunities for improving policy effectiveness in explaining factors associated with adoption of policy tools we find support for variables comprising both the policy diffusion and internal determinants models of policy adoption including state commitment to environmental protection and policy innovations citizen ideology per capita wealth energy policy network communications and desire to be viewed as an environmental leader

green electricity policies in the united states case study while there has been interest in promoting the use of renewable energy in electricity production for a number of years in the united states the market share of non hydro renewable energy sources in electricity production has remained at about 2 percent over the past decade the paper reviews the principal energy resources used for electricity production considers the changing regulatory environment for the electricity industry and describes government policies that have been used to promote green electricity in the united states with an emphasis on measures adopted by state governments factors influencing the development of green power markets are also discussed including underlying economic issues public policy measures the regulatory environment external costs and subsidies without significant increases in fossil fuel prices much more stringent environmental regulations or significant changes in electricity customer preferences green electricity markets are likely to develop slowly in the united states

methodological issues in the determination of the quality of life in urban areas this paper presents a model which illustrates the interaction between the labour and real estate markets in the determination of the value of local amenities the primary purpose of this study is to examine the importance of functional form in measuring the quality of life qol in urban areas using 1980 data on us urban counties this specification provides new options for qol estimates as an extension of previous work this study also discusses the problems associated with summarising qol in a one dimensional monotonic ranking one form of a multi dimensional rating system is presented for comparison

the job generation impacts of expanding industrial cogeneration sustainable economic development requires the efficient production and use of energy combined heat and power chp offers a promising technological approach to achieving both goals while a recent u s executive order set a national goal of 40 gw of new industrial chp by 2020 the deployment of chp is challenged by financial regulatory and workforce barriers discrepancies between private and public interests can be minimized by policies promoting energy based economic development in this context a great deal of rhetoric has addressed the ambiguous goal of growing green jobs our research provides a systematic evaluation of the job impacts of an investment tax credit that would subsidize industrial chp deployment we introduce a hybrid analysis approach combining simulations using the national energy modeling system with input output modeling nems simulates general equilibrium effects including supply and demand side resources we identify first order employment impacts by creating bill of goods expenditures for the installation and operation of industrial chp systems second order impacts are then estimated based on the redirection of energy bill savings accruing to consumers these include jobs across the economy created by the lower electricity prices that would result from increased reliance on energy efficient chp systems on a jobs per gwh basis we find that the second order impacts are approximately twice as large as the first order impacts

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

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

impact of deployment of renewable portfolio standard on the electricity price in the state of illinois and implications on policies abstract the renewable portfolio standard rps of the state of illinois specifies a schedule for the fraction of electricity produced from wind to be phased in through 2025 the price of electricity due to implementation of rps in order to achieve a six year payback on investment on new wind farms was estimated for six scenarios that examined the effect of electricity consumption growth rate production tax credit of 0 022 kw h or unrestricted investment tax credit of 30 and projected changes in installed project costs in all cases the electricity price was found to be dominated by the installed project cost capital cost thus any policy that affects the capital cost directly or indirectly would have a significant effect on the electricity price whereas investment tax credit has a direct effect policies that encourage technology improvement and improve transmission lines would have a similar effect of lowering the capital cost carbon tax on the other hand would increase the electricity price to the consumers although it offers other benefits

wind energy deployment in the u s an empirical analysis of the role of federal and state policies abstract using a 50 state panel dataset covering the years 1990 2011 we empirically examine the effectiveness of national and state level policies that encourage wind energy deployment in the u s this study is the first to use econometric techniques to examine both the impact of the flagship federal policy the production tax credit and the influence of the production tax credit on the effectiveness of state level policies first we show that the national production tax credit alone has been effective in promoting wind energy deployment 1 4 gw per year on average in the u s second we show that production tax credit influences the effectiveness of state level policies in promoting wind deployment for example in the presence of the production tax credit mandatory green power option increases wind deployment in a state by 200 mw per year on average third we show that the array of renewable energy resources within a given state positively influences the responsiveness to state and national wind policies

renewable energy and the environment in south africa a way forward the need to mitigate the adverse environmental impacts of fossil fuel usage the volatility of fuel prices and enhancement of national energy security have largely driven a phenomenal growth around the world in renewable energy re generation particularly grid connected over the past two decades the necessity to apply policy support instruments to promote the dissemination of these technologies is now a universally accepted norm different countries and societies depending on the prevailing socio economic environment draft and apply their policy frameworks differently and debates abound as to which mechanisms should have been most suitable under which circumstance most of these debates however assume the existence of an intrinsic political environment in favour of the process in south africa the current political environment is not very conducive to the development of a sustainable re industry this paper explores some of the anomalies and barriers and suggests possible options for a way forward to a viable re industry in the country

policy review section in this policy review section gerry stoker of the institute of local government studies presents a critical review of the role of urban development corporations udcs in comparing the experience of the udcs consideration is given to the varying nature of the land and property market in each udc area to the relationship with local authorities and other local bodies and the regeneration strategies pursued by the udcs this is followed by an assessment of the impact of the udcs in economic social and political terms in the second article john britton of the university of toronto examines the theoretical case for interventionist public policies to assist the innovation process in small and medium sized enterprises these arguments are supported by a review of the experience of various national support programmes introduced in the uk in particular the manufacturing advisory service introduced in 1978 and the design advisory service launched in 1982

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

financial services and the urban system an exploration financial services have come to represent an increasingly important sector in the economies of developed nations although a substantial literature has accumulated on this topic relatively little attention has been given to the locational aspects of nancial services an attempt is made here to examine the spatial structure of this sector in terms of the urban system drawing on the principles of central place theory the limitations and applicability of which are considered this is followed by a discussion of the salient features of financial services within the overall urban system after describing the differentiation of financial services in frequency terms the hierarchical structure of the uk urban system is outlined these two aspects are then related in order to demonstrate the ordered nature of the spatial structure of financial services there follows a brief discussion of the findings and their implications for future work

benchmarking urban energy efficiency in the uk this study asks what is the best way to measure urban energy efficiency there has been recent interest in identifying efficient cities so that best practices can be shared a process known as benchmarking previous studies have used relatively simple metrics that provide limited insight on the complexity of urban energy efficiency and arguably fail to provide a fair measure of urban performance using a data set of 198 urban uk local administrative units three methods are compared ratio measures regression residuals and data envelopment analysis the results show that each method has its own strengths and weaknesses regarding the ease of interpretation ability to identify outliers and provide consistent rankings efficient areas are diverse but are notably found in low income areas of large conurbations such as london whereas industrial areas are consistently ranked as inefficient the results highlight the shortcomings of the underlying production based energy accounts ideally urban energy efficiency benchmarks would be built on consumption based accounts but interim recommendations are made regarding the use of efficiency measures that improve upon current practice and facilitate wider conversations about what it means for a specific city to be energy efficient within an interconnected economy

electricity generation from renewables in the united states resource potential current usage technical status challenges strategies policies and future directions abstract in order to secure the energy future and protect the environment the u s is looking for renewable resources to meet the increasing energy demands for its electricity sector which accounts for 40 of total u s energy consumption in 2011 the overall aim of this article is to summarize the possible approaches that can be used to improve and optimize the utilization of renewables for electricity generation in the united states first an overview is presented about the resource potential current usage and technical status of electricity generation from renewables in the united states second a number of economic operational regulatory sustainability and technical challenges that are likely to be encountered are identified third strategies are outlined that can be used to minimize costs deal with the spatial nature of renewables smooth temporal variations associated with intermittency and achieve successful integration of electricity generated from renewable resources into the u s power grid fourth a sustainability assessment framework for renewable resource deployment for electricity generation in the u s is discussed the framework considers multiple criteria including cost environmental and social impacts thus giving a comprehensive assessment of each renewable energy resource for electricity generation in the united states fifth the current u s renewable energy policy is analyzed and rigorous recommendations are made for optimizing future u s renewable energy policy that can permanently induce a long term sustainable shift towards electricity generation from renewables finally directions for future research are highlighted

future wind and solar power market values in germany evidence of spatial and technological dependencies abstract achieving ambitious climate targets entails an extensive utilisation of renewable energy sources however due to weather dependent fluctuations generation from variable renewable energy vre sources is characterised by significantly lower market values in comparison to conventional technologies reinforced by a decline in electricity prices this development poses interesting questions as to its drivers and to what extent market values of wind and solar power can be influenced by the design of electricity markets against this background a scenario based analysis is conducted to trace the future development of market values using endogenously derived electricity prices considering different regional and technological vre diversification strategies and investments into vre technologies on a myopic basis the results show a continued decline in market values with increasing regional discrepancies indicating a growing importance of interregional interdependencies for assessing the profitability of vre furthermore from a system point of view a more distributed allocation of onshore wind capacities to contend with declining market values does not always prove to stabilise market values by facilitating a more constant feed in pattern contrary to expectation finally replacing onshore with offshore wind energy appears to be beneficial as it can lead to an overall increase in the market values of offshore onshore as well as pv generation technologies compared to other mitigation strategies this result raise interesting questions about the systemic economic value of offshore wind despite its higher lcoe in the context of market integration of vre

drivers promoting renewable energy a dynamic panel approach we study the commitment to renewable energy sources focusing on a set of 24 european countries and applying panel dynamic estimators europe is a leading player in the fight against climate change and the estimators we use reveal themselves to be appropriate in handling the persistency effect on renewables the level of renewable energy use in the previous period has a positive and highly significant effect on the current level of use traditional energy sources restrain the impetus towards renewables social awareness of sustainability climate change mitigation and co2 reduction targets are not enough to motivate the switch from traditional to renewables energy sources income and prices of fossil based fuels were not significant for the development of renewables in the period from 1990 to 2006 suggesting that it was not the market that encouraged renewables

fiscal and economic impacts of state incentives for wind energy development in the western united states abstract wind energy production in the united states has seen significant growth over recent years due in large part to the state and federal policies designed to encourage wind energy development this research focuses on measures undertaken at the state level in the western region of the united states several of these states have implemented legislation in the form of financial incentives and renewable portfolio standards to support wind development it is shown that state tax incentives and physical drivers have a significant positive impact on wind energy growth there has been concern however about the fiscal impacts of financial incentives on state tax revenues as a result some states have removed tax incentives a recent example is the removal of sales and use tax rebates for wind producers in idaho however the removal of such incentives results in a net loss of tax revenues as well as negative economic impacts by hindering the development of wind energy projects it is shown that attendant economic benefits from wind development results in significant positive fiscal impacts by increasing tax revenues for state and local governments the increased tax revenues begin with the pre construction and construction phases of such projects and continue to accrue throughout the life of project operations until eventual decommissioning the removal of this incentive in idaho results in a net reduction in tax revenues as well as the loss of significant economic benefits in terms of employment incomes and total output for the state

where do all the windmills go influence of the institutional setting on the spatial distribution of renewable energy installation abstract promoting renewable energy sources is one policy response to climate change not only is there currently a debate over the best policy instrument it is also discussed whether the renewable energy production should be expanded centralized at locations with the highest production potential or decentralized close to load it is yet not fully understood what influences the spatial distribution of renewable energy installation i assess the effect of subsidy scheme and market design on the spatial distribution of wind energy installations by comparing a feed in tariffs versus market premiums and b uniform versus nodal pricing the analysis is based on theoretical considerations and using a six node test model that reflects the consumption and renewable resource distribution in several countries and regions the institutional setting has great influence on the spatial distribution and resulting system costs with uniform pricing a market premium only leads to a more decentralized expansion of renewable energy production than a tariff when sites share similar wind conditions spatially more distributed expansion of wind power performs better in terms of total costs and share of wind power in final demand when networks are restricted

american policy conflict in the greenhouse divergent trends in federal regional state and local green energy and climate change policy climate change threatens significant impacts on global ecosystems and human populations to address this challenge industrialized nations have ratified the kyoto protocol and undertaken commitments to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases the primary agents linked to anthropogenic alteration of earth s climate by contrast the us government led by the bush administration has rejected mandatory targets for curbing emissions under the protocol and has instead pursued voluntary mitigation measures amid a larger push for clean coal and next generation nuclear technologies these actions in total have fueled global perceptions that the us is not acting in substantial ways to address climate change nevertheless action within the us is indeed moving forward with states cities and regional partnerships filling the federal leadership vacuum this paper reviews the diverse policies strategies and cooperative frameworks that have emerged at regional state and local levels to guide climate protection and identifies the environmental and economic benefits linked to such programs the paper also attempts to explain the existing federal impasse on climate policy with attention given to how sub national efforts may ultimately obviate national governmental inaction r 2007 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

review on the costs and benefits of renewable energy power subsidy in china abstract nowadays renewable energy plays a vital role in the sustainable development of a society in china renewable energy power has developed rapidly since the implementation of renewable energy act through a series of specific incentive measures especially subsidy policies china s renewable energy power has made great achievements both in technology and application based on the state of the art of renewable energy power this paper comprehensively analyzed the costs and benefits of renewable energy power subsidy in china the analysis results show the cost of renewable energy power subsidy was 0 248 cny kwh between 2006 and april 2011 which was distributed among different renewable energy power types including wind power biomass power and solar pv power or categories including electricity price accessing grid projects and public independent renewable energy power system on the other hand the renewable energy power subsidy also brings benefits to different aspects of the society specifically the environmental benefit amounted to 17 88 billion cny and the benefits of guaranteeing energy security advancing technology innovation and promoting economic development were also noteworthy

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

the mechanism and policy on the electricity price of renewable energy in china abstract with the rapid development of the society energy demand is becoming more urgent so it is necessary to exploit the renewable energy because of the limited conventional energy this paper introduced the current development situation of the renewable energy analyzed the subsidy policy and discussed the problems of the electricity price mechanisms and policies in china finally we got the conclusion that government should formulate more policies to encourage private and foreign enterprises to invest renewable energy industries as well as to apply the cdm mechanism

change actors in the u s electric energy system the role of environmental groups in utility adoption and diffusion of wind power we study the contribution of environmental groups to new technology adoption and diffusion by dominant incumbents building on institutional and social movement theory we develop a theoretical framework that sheds light on environmental groups as change actors we theorize that by approaching embedded key constituents with various strategic actions environmental groups affect taken for granted beliefs build legitimacy for renewable energy technologies and convince skeptical constituents to support the new technology we verify our theoretical framework with a case study of wind power development in colorado we find that environmentalists educate constituents on the benefits of the new technology engage in activities leading to regulatory and legislative decisions for wind while also providing direct assistance to the utility as a result utilities are both pressured and encouraged to adopt and diffuse wind power on a large scale this research directs attention to the role of environmental groups as change actors and the legitimating effects of their actions it highlights their part in creating a more favorable institutional environment for new technologies while directly influencing the incumbent s technology choice this paper contributes to an understanding of bottom up actor initiated changes in energy systems taking into account both the systemic technological infrastructure and the institutional context

the plight of the biomass power generation industry in china a supply chain risk perspective abstract for the past several years the biomass power generation industry in china has witnessed notably rapid development however many biomass power generation manufacturers in china are currently making small profits or suffering losses and the entire biomass supply chain does not function well which not only poses a challenge for the stable operation of enterprises but also may impact the smooth development of the biomass power industry from the perspective of supply chain risk this paper explores the reasons for the current plight and the future obstacles that the chinese biomass power generation industry may face identifying such risks as market risk production risk technology risk economic risk and management risk in the upstream midstream and downstream of the biomass supply chain and ordering the degrees of risk controllability by the government and enterprises it is determined that joint effort by both the chinese government and the biomass power generation enterprises is an ideal choice for risk control coming out of the plight however at present more problems should go to the government for solutions than to the enterprises to guide the healthy development of the industry the chinese government should play a more prominent role in promulgating supporting policies in each stage of the supply chain and strengthening the supervision and control of biomass projects last specific measures taken by the chinese government and the enterprises are proposed

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

ex post analysis of economic impacts from wind power development in u s counties wind power development has surged in recent years in the united states policymakers and economic development practitioners to date have typically relied upon project level case studies or modeled input output estimates to assess the economic development impacts from wind power often focusing on potential local state wide or national employment or earnings impacts building on this literature we conduct an ex post econometric analysis of the county level economic development impacts of wind power installations from 2000 through 2008 in a large wind rich region in the country taking into account factors influencing wind turbine location we find an aggregate increase in county level personal income and employment of approximately 11 000 and 0 5 jobs per megawatt of wind power capacity installed over the sample period of 2000 to 2008 these estimates appear broadly consistent with modeled input output results and translate to a median increase in total county personal income and employment of 0 2 and 0 4 for counties with installed wind power over the same period

role of policy in deployment of wind energy evidence across states of india abstract this paper is an enquiry into the role of state policies in influencing wind installed capacity the paper studies the impact of policies on deployment of wind potential across the states of india over two decades aggregate indices are computed for each of the seven wind resourceful states of india indicating attractiveness for installed capacity of wind energy for computing the indices four policies feed in tariff renewable purchase obligation banking facility and wheeling charges are considered panel data techniques are then employed to investigate the impact of the policy differences on wind potential deployment over the 19 year period 1993 2012 after controlling for three state specific factors the controlling factors include per capita income of the state power deficit and ratio of installed capacity of wind to geographic potential indicating unmet capacity the results show that that policy index positively impacts wind deployment whether control variables are included or not moreover the control factors like the per capita income of the state and unmet capacity have positive influence over the investment in wind energy

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

territorial competition and globalisation scylla and charybdis of european cities policy makers in europe have been concerned with developing and sustaining the competitiveness of their cities this concern comes from the view that the determing parameter of urban regions is globalisation by engaging in a process of territorial competition the economic and social welfare of cities constituent territories can be maintained what this paper argues is that there is a danger that territorial competition is as much an abstraction as globalisation and its application to policy making will bring about distortions in economic development by examining the specification of globalisation and territorial competition and the relevant literature a debate may be initiated in which the consequences for the economic environment of european cities are addressed the discussion is given some context by drawing on the cursory examples one global and one local of london and lille

network governance for competitiveness the role of policy networks in the economic performance of settlements in the izmir region some cities and regions grow faster than others and they increase their relative shares in the global economy the literature offers a wide list of factors of competitiveness most of which define individual capacities of cities recently however there has been an increasing focus on the importance of network governance and the policy networks formed between different cities this paper examines the importance of policy networks compared with other widely recognised factors of competitiveness to the economic performance of settlements in the izmir region and investigates the importance of classical competitiveness indicators and network relations on their economic performance with the use of econometric methods in conclusion it discusses the importance of policy networks in administrative reform processes and economic development policies

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

a quantile approach to identify factors promoting renewable energy in european countries this paper analyses the impact of several factors on the use of renewable energy sources in a set of european union countries by applying a quantile regression approach we find that different factors are effective for different levels of renewable energy commitment and the magnitudes of some effects evolve in accordance with the level of renewable energy sources used consequently some policies that do not take into account the different stages could carry different effects the results suggest that the lobbying effect of the established industries hampers the development of renewable sources and that this effect is greater for lower initial level of renewable energy use the results reveal that environmental concerns have not yet achieved enough pressure to stimulate major developments on renewables we include two new drivers geographic area and european union directive 2001 77 ec that directive was effective in signaling the commitment to renewables namely for countries with lower renewables use

estimating the value of wind energy using electricity locational marginal price abstract there is an increasing interest in adding renewables such as wind to electricity generation portfolios in larger amounts as one response to concern about atmospheric carbon emissions from our energy system and the resulting climate change most policies with the aim of promoting renewables e g rps fit do not explicitly address siting issues which for wind energy are currently approached as the intersection of wind resource land control and transmission factors this work proposes the use of locational marginal price lmp the location and time specific cost of electricity on the wholesale market to signal locations where generation can address electricity system insufficiency after an examination of the spatial and temporal behavior of lmp in michigan over the first two years of wholesale market operation this work combines lmp with wind speed data to generate a value metric high value sites in michigan tend to be sites with higher wind speeds with the bulk of value accruing in the fall and winter seasons

differences in income elasticities and trends in real exchange rates abstract one might expect that differences in income elasticities in trade and or differences in growth rates among countries would give rise to strong secular trends in real exchange rates for example fast growing countries might need steady depreciation to get the world to accept their growing exports in fact however income elasticities are systematically related to growth rates by the 45 degree rule under which fast growing countries appear to face high income elasticities of demand for their exports while having low income elasticities of import demand the net effect of this relationship between elasticities and growth rates is that secular trends in real exchange rates are much smaller than one might otherwise have expected relative ppp holds fairly well this paper documents the existence of a 45 degree rule and suggests an explanation in terms of increasing returns and product differentiation

a critical review of competitiveness measurement in northern ireland the measurement of regional competitiveness is an important and complex issue previous research has mostly considered national economies however indicators and measures identified at the nationa

redefining recs part 1 untangling attributes and offsets abstract renewable energy and greenhouse gas emissions markets are currently in a state of confusion regarding the treatment of renewable energy certificates recs should consumers buy recs or emission offsets after examining this question the author concludes that recs are not equivalent to emission offset credits and as currently defined the retiring of a rec may have no impact on emissions from electric power generation consumers who purchase recs in voluntary green power markets are providing financial assistance to renewable generators in the form of a production subsidy generators that sell recs are not transferring emission reductions since they are unlikely to have ownership or the ability to quantify reductions using a commonly accepted standard more importantly recs currently sold in voluntary markets do not pass credible additionality tests and can at best be expected to have a market demand effect which will be less than the supply of recs on the market rec definitions that use the term environmental attributes or environmental benefits are almost universally ambiguous providing the mistaken impression that consumers are purchasing a good instead of subsidizing a public good

biomass direct fired power generation system in china an integrated energy ghg emissions and economic evaluation for salix abstract to gain a better understanding of the options of biomass power generation in china this study presented an integrated energy environmental and economic evaluation for salix in china and a typical salix direct fired power generation system sdpgs in inner mongolia was selected for case study a tiered hybrid life cycle assessment lca model was developed to calculate the planting to wire ptw energy consumption greenhouse gas ghg emissions and economic cost and profit of the sdpgs including feedstock cultivation power plant construction and operation and on grid price with without government subsidies the results show that the ptw energy consumption and ghg emissions of salix are 0 8 mj kwh and 114 g co2 eq kwh respectively indicating an energy payback time epbt of 3 2 years the sdpgs is not economically feasible without government subsidies the ptw costs are dominated by feedstock cultivation the energy saving and ghg mitigation benefits are still robust even when the power plant runs at only 60 design capacity for future development of biomass power in china scientific planning is necessary to guarantee a sufficient feedstock supply in addition technology progress mature industrial chains and reasonable price setting policy are required to enable potential energy and environmental advantages of biomass power moving forward

renewable generation across italian regions spillover effects and effectiveness of european regional fund abstract this paper investigates on the determinant factors that drive the italian regions toward a sustainable development path and evaluates the effectiveness of european regional development incentives in promoting investments in renewable energy sources res starting from the consideration that there are spillover effects between similar regions first we identify the factors that capture these similarities then we use them to evaluate their relevance in determining the success of the investments in res an econometric analysis based on the use of spatial panel specification model is implemented to support the hypotheses two important results emerge from the study the first is the identification of regional determinants of res production that are driven by the similarities between regions and that can be interpreted as guidelines in the policy choices in support of investments the second is the lack of effectiveness of the incentives in support of res results indicate that the capacity of some regional governments to direct the funds allocated by the central government or european commission towards efficient production of renewable energy is likely limited and these incentives have been undone

the market value of variable renewables the effect of solar wind power variability on their relative price this paper provides a comprehensive discussion of the market value of variable renewable energy vre the inherent variability of wind speeds and solar radiation affects the price that vre generators receive on the market market value during windy and sunny times the additional electricity supply reduces the prices because the drop is larger with more installed capacity the market value of vre falls with higher penetration rate this study aims to develop a better understanding on how the market value with penetration and how policies and prices affect the market value quantitative evidence is derived from a review of published studies regression analysis of market data and the calibrated model of the european electricity market emma we find the value of wind power to fall from 110 of the average power price to 50 80 as wind penetration increases from zero to 30 of total electricity consumption for solar power similarly low value levels are reached already at 15 penetration hence competitive large scale renewable deployment will be more difficult to accomplish than as many anticipate

factors influencing the likelihood of regulatory changes in renewable electricity policies abstract the renewable electricity literature has expanded in recent years from the analysis of policies focused on research and development rd the coherence of the policies the size and variety of the coalitions supporting and opposing renewable electricity and the brussels effect the importance of these factors is evaluated in the case of three major markets of renewable electricity germany the netherlands and denmark

the role of smart metering and decentralized electricity storage for smart grids the importance of positive externalities because of its fluctuating nature the feed in of renewable energy sources into low voltage distribution grids complicates the balancing of demand and supply this carries the risk of grid instabilities causing damage to electronic devices and power outages which eventually lead to deadweight losses in principle the problems arising from fluctuating feed in can be solved by increasing demand elasticity or decoupling generation and consumption for the first an advanced metering infrastructure and for the second decentralized electricity storage are considered core enablers however to date the diffusion of these future smart grids core components is low the present study provides new insights for understanding and overcoming diffusion barriers for this purpose a qualitative research approach was chosen the most important stakeholders as well as related private costs and benefits are identified the findings show that both of these smart grid components are widely considered beneficial to society by experts however because the numerous private benefits are widely distributed among distinct players socially desired investments are hampered by positive externalities the importance of well designed and consistent regulatory and legal frameworks that provide economic incentives to involved stakeholders is highlighted in the results

the assessment international competitiveness the concept of international competitiveness as applied to national economies is a popular one politicians businessmen and economists alike re fer to it in day to day discussion when looking at the external export import market share or trade balance performance of different countries indi cators are produced showing changes in or levels of various countries competitiveness e g the relative price or cost indices regularly published by the imf and the oecd or the absolute measures produced by organizations such as the geneva world economic forum and the lausanne institute for management development governments of ten instigate research on the matter as for instance in the case of the 1993 us competitiveness policy council orthe 1995 eu competitiveness advisory group yet it has recently been argued by paul krugman that competitiveness is a meaningless word when applied to national economies and the obsession with competitiveness is both wrong and dangerous krugman 1994 p 44 apositionkrugman forcefully reaffirms in his contribution to this issue of the oxford review of economic policy

competition within the european urban system the diminishing importance of national frontiers in western europe has intensified competition between cities for mobile investment for the location of public institutions and for hallmark events this has led to the creation of league tables of cities in which rankings are determined by single or multiple variables analyses of changes in rankings focus on whether there has been divergence or convergence amongst european cities this paper uses data on 117 cities to suggest that there was convergence in 1981 84 followed by divergence in 1984 87 the paper goes on to test three hypotheses which relate urban economic growth to size or capital status to location within the core or periphery and location within northern or southern europe overall it finds that capital cities grow more quickly in economic terms that the urban south is catching up with the urban north and that whilst the cities of the core did best before 1985 there is some evidence that crowding out has relatively helped the citie

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

cost effectiveness of renewable electricity policies we analyze policies to promote renewable sources of electricity a portfolio standard rps raises electricity prices and primarily reduces gas fired generation a knee of the cost curve exists between 15 and 20 goals for 2020 in our central case and higher natural gas prices lower the cost of greater reliance on renewables a renewable energy production tax credit lowers electricity price at the expense of taxpayers which limits its effectiveness in reducing carbon emissions and it is less cost effective at increasing renewables than a portfolio standard neither policy is as cost effective as a cap and trade policy for achieving carbon emission reductions

development goal of 30 gw for china s biomass power generation will it be achieved abstract china currently is engaged in resolving many issues which involve increasing peasants income protecting environment and adjusting energy structure which are able to be solved by developing the biomass power generation industry this paper focuses on the development goal of 30 gw for china s biomass power generation summarizes the industrial situation and policy environment discusses the possibility of achieving the development goal and introduces the way to achieve the goal we draw the following conclusions 1 there are still some obstacles to be overcome such as the insufficient raw material supply the low feed in tariff and the poor ability of technical research 2 according to china s current industrial situation it is possible to achieve the development goal 3 china s policy tools is able to guarantee the industry development goal at last we offer several policy recommendations for adjusting the feed in tariff and completing the tradable green certificate system

governance and renewable energy investment in mena countries how does trade matter abstract the middle east and north africa mena countries have recently developed renewable energy re markets however their rate of investment in renewable energy remains small compared to other regions in the world despite their relatively abundant endowments particularly in wind and solar while the literature identifies some barriers to investment in renewable energy we assume that the investment of mena countries could be impeded by specific governance factors furthermore we consider recent literature showing that trade openness reduces the negative effects of weak governance in this paper we empirically investigate the link between governance openness and renewable energy investment in the mena region using panel data for 15 mena countries over the period 1996 2013 our results prove that high institutional quality is associated with re investment in mena countries in addition this relationship seems to be conditional on the trade regime our results are robust to several measures of renewable energy investment and governance as well as to an alternative econometric set up

the effect of financial constraints technological progress and long term contracts on tradable green certificates tradable green certificates tgcs have recently become a diffuse instrument to support renewable electricity in oecd countries although it is perhaps too early to draw a conclusive judgement on the effectiveness of this instrument in increasing renewable capacity and decreasing the price of certificates one view in the literature maintains that long term contracts are of particular importance for tgcs to be effective this paper contributes to this debate by analysing how financial constraints and technological progress can induce investors to hold pessimistic expectations of their ability to sell green certificates and still make a profit clearly these expectations will prevent investors from building new capacity to fulfil the quota comprised in tgcs and will keep the price of certificates traded in the market high as this kind of expectation is not influenced by most design features of tgcs one can conclude that long term contracts are particularly important in determining the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of these instruments some attention should therefore be paid to the features of the tgcs which induce obliged parties to offer long term contracts to renewable generators

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

a feedstock supply model integrating the official organization for china s biomass generation plants abstract shortage of feedstock has hindered the development of china s biomass power generation because it is highly difficult to collect straw in china we pioneered a new feedstock supply model in which the formal official organization of villagers committees is introduced different from the previous feedstock supply patterns the immaterial utility of relative stakeholders and the impact of villagers committees on farmers behavior are considered in this paper to compare this pattern s performance with that of the conventional ones this paper developed a multi agent model specifically for china s situation we applied the model to simulate the operation of a biomass supply chain the results show that the proposed feedstock supply pattern can significantly increase the profits of biomass plants biomass supply amounts and farmers participation and in contrast with the broker pattern it can lower feedstock prices through disintermediation sensitivity analyses show that preferential feed in tariffs are still necessary for biomass power and that the new pattern can ease the government s subsidy burdens additionally farmers opportunity costs for supplying biomass their perceptions of immaterial utility and the cooperative s financial resource schemes of the public welfare fund all have differing impacts on the achievement of the new pattern

wind power development in the united states abstract this paper analyzes the drivers of wind power development in the united states focusing on government renewable energy incentives and access to the electricity grid the effects of wind capacity electricity transmission line coverage and grid regulation as well as state and federal subsidies from 1998 to 2007 are estimated via random effects tobit probit and ordinary least squares instrumental variables regression the results indicate that the federal production tax credit state level sales tax credit and production incentives play an important role in promoting wind power in addition higher wind power penetration levels can be achieved by bringing more parts of the electricity transmission grid under independent system operator regulation this paper concludes that state and federal government policies play a significant role in wind power development both by providing financial support and by improving physical and procedural access to the electricity grid

analysis on the policies of biomass power generation in china abstract this paper systematically collects and sorts out china polices of biomass power generation policy mainly from 2006 to 2012 based on the actual demand of the biomass power generation project according to the effect of the policy implementation it analyzes the problems about the policies such as the development goal being too large tax policies not being easy to implement the relevance amongst some policies being poor and provides some suggestions finally it concludes that biomass power generation should be developed steadily in china and fiscal supporting should not be introduced any more

geographic proximity to coal plants and u s public support for extending the production tax credit abstract the production tax credit ptc is an important policy instrument through which the federal government promotes renewable energy development in the united states however the efficacy of the ptc is hampered by repeated expirations and short term extensions and by the general uncertainty surrounding its future status we examine the factors driving variation in public support for the extension of the ptc using a nationally representative internet based survey americans living near a coal fired power plant are significantly more likely to support extending the ptc than are their peers who are more insulated from the externalities of burning coal the evidence for this dynamic was strongest and most statistically significant among subjects experimentally primed to think about the adverse health effects of burning coal raising awareness of the public health ramifications of generating electricity from fossil fuels holds the potential to increase support for renewable energy policies among those living in proximity to coal plants even in a highly politicized policy debate

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

economic diversification and group stability in an urban system the case of canada 1951 86 researchers have shown relatively little recent interest in the study of the economic diversification and classification of urban systems if we are to understand contemporary urban structures older studies must be brought up to date this study of the economic character of towns greater than 30 000 in canada demonstrates the degree of diversification of the centres between 1951 and 1986 and provides a succinct classification of the centres the expected decrease in the general level of diversification between the two dates is complemented by the finding that differences in this single summary measure between the regions of canada can no longer be found cluster analysis procedures are used to derive seven groups of places in 1986 which are very similar to the categories found in 1951 even though there has been a transformation in the size and economy of the places this relative stability in the categories of places is parallelled by similarities in the membership of the groups however at the most f

is biomass power a good choice for governments in china abstract to fulfill the target of emissions reduction the chinese government has made many efforts to develop renewable energy biomass power can provide stable power supply avoid wasting straw resources and protect rural environment at the same time however the development of renewable power requires subsidies from the government but increased subsidies placed heavy burden on the governments whereas these governments want to develop renewable energy with minimum costs this paper attempts to answer the question that whether the development of biomass power is a good choice for local governments in china for this purpose the goal of emissions reduction and subsidies of renewable energy powers were discussed the main conclusion is that although the subsidies for biomass power were slightly higher than those for wind power biomass power is a good choice for governments considering other benefits especially for regions with rich agricultural and forest residues in the future regional and local conditions should be considered in the planning of biomass power development

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

system friendly wind power how advanced wind turbine design can increase the economic value of electricity generated through wind power abstract previous studies find that the economic value of electricity usd mwh generated by wind power drops with increasing market share different measures can help mitigate the value drop including electricity storage flexible conventional plants expansion of transmission and demand response this study assesses another option a change in design of wind power plants advanced wind turbines that are higher and have a larger rotor compared to rated capacity lower specific rating generate electricity more constantly than classical turbines recent years have witnessed a significant shift towards such advanced technology our model based analysis for northwestern europe shows that such design can substantially increase the spot market value of generated electricity at a 30 penetration rate the value of 1 mwh of electricity generated from a fleet of advanced turbines is estimated to be 15 higher than the value of 1 mwh from classical turbines the additional value is large whether compared to wind generation costs to the value drop or to the effect of alternative measures such as electricity storage extensive sensitivity tests indicate that this finding is remarkably robust the increase in bulk power value is not the only advantage of advanced turbines additional benefits might accrue from reduced costs for power grids and balancing services to fully realize this potential power markets and support policies need to be appropriately designed and signal scarcity investors

developing indicators to inform local economic development in england based on a conceptual framework of 11 factors that are widely perceived to be the major determinants of local economic development led 29 indicators were identified to measure these factors pri

regional competitiveness and the single market steinle w j 1992 regional competitiveness and the single market reg studies 26 307 318 in the single european market keener competition will take place not only between companies but also between regions to analyse the regional effects of further european integration the present paper sets out a broad concept of regional competitiveness this concept includes so called soft factors such as the presence of production oriented services r d and regional innovative capacity the concept is assessed against regional sensitivity which captures the degree to which regions are affected by the single european market in the light of recent developments in eastern europe a broad perspective on regional sensitivity is argued for on this basis regional competitiveness and regional sensitivity are analysed in the context of the single market the analysis identifies regions which are gaining momentum with regard to their competitiveness it is shown that the winners from further european integration a

assessing the determinants of sids pattern toward sustainability a statistical analysis abstract the aim of this paper is twofold first we assess the sids pattern towards energy sustainability second we try to understand the macro factors that drive policy makers in setting the optimal framework for investments in renewable energy sources the empirical analysis is performed on a large dataset of 136 countries and 41 variables observed in the time span 2000 2011 countries analyzed include a sample of 12 sids bahrain cuba dominican republic fiji islands guyana haiti jamaica maldives mauritius papua new guinea singapore trinidad and tobago distributed worldwide due to the large number of variables collected and their high degree of collinearity the first step of the analysis concerns the implementation of a principal component analysis in order to extract factors explaining the majority of variation of the original variables in the second step three different scenarios of modeling are designed to examine the key factors promoting res investments in a first scenario we employ a pooled regression model in the second a fixed effect model and in the third a random effect model is estimated the main results of empirical analysis could be unexpected at first sight they show in fact that sids are not on a energy sustainability path as in the case of other developing countries policy makers prefer to use resources to improve economic aspects of development leaving behind issues related to the environmental protection the use of res and sustainability in order to improve economic and environmental resilience of sids a synergy between local governments and international organizations to promote the investments in res is needed moreover an energy plan that clearly supports the generation of energy from res is recommended finally policy makers should strength their commitment in raising population s awareness toward a green energy generation such synergic interventions will allow sids to achieve a more sustainable development