## 4 Policy Reviews
### Economic Instruments  
The government regulators administered these instruments by providing economic/monetary incentives for promotion and the adaptation of risk management. Economic instruments (EI) play a crucial role in cost reduction and innovation deployment in RE production. EI policies are classified into three main groups that include [25]:  
* Direct investments: These are designed to reduce the capital cost of RE investment. * Fiscal/financial incentives: This is a type of financial support provided to investors for accelerating the development of RE projects and reducing the risk to investors. * Market-based instruments: These are instruments of environmental policies in which a change in technology or products is encouraged through financial incentives. Some examples of the EI policies are listed in Table 2 for the three countries under study: China, Brazil, and the USA, respectively. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c} \hline \hline
**RE Policy Categories** & **RE Policy Sections** & **RE Policy Sub-Sections** \\ \hline \multirow{6}{*}{Economic Instruments (EI)} & \multirow{3}{*}{Direct investment} & Funds to sub-national governments, infrastructure investments, procurement rules, and Research, Development and Deployment (RD\&D) funding \\ \cline{2-3}  & & Feed-in tariffs (FIT)/premiums, grants and subsides, loans, tax relief, taxes, and user charges \\ \cline{2-3}  & & Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission allowances, green certificates, and white certificates \\ \hline Research, Development and & Demonstration project, and research program (technology development, and, technology deployment and diffusion) \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{Information \& Education (IE)} & Information provision, performance label (comparison label and endorsements), professional training and qualification, and advice/aid in implementation \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{Regulatory Instruments (RI)} & Auditing, codes and standards (building codes and standards, product standards, sectoral standards, vehicle fuel economy and emissions standards), monitoring, obligation schemes, and other mandatory requirements \\ \hline RE Policy Support (PS) & Institutional creation, and strategic planning \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{Voluntary approaches (VA)} & Negotiated agreements (public-private sectors), public voluntary schemes, and unilateral commitments (private sectors) \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular} Data source: [25].  
\end{table} 
Table 1: Summary of the different types of RE support policies. In order to provide better understanding, brief explanations for some of the policies seen in Table 2 are listed below. For more detailed information on each one of the above-listed policies, the interested reader is referred to [25]. \end{table}
Table 2: Examples of the EI policies adopted in China, Brazil, and the USA. * **China**: 1. The RE law (released in 2009) introduced the FIT to support solar photovoltaic, wind, biomass, and other renewables with subsidies [26]. 2. In the 2010 and 2020 targets, hydroelectric represents 80% of all renewable capacity [26]. In order to support hydropower development, a unified and standardized large-scale hydropower corporation tax policy was set. 3. The Golden Sun Program provided capital subsidies for solar PV installations [27]. 4. The Wind Power Concession Program reduced the cost of wind power and drove private sector investment [13]. 5. In the environmental field, China had taken many steps, such as a national GHG trading market for vehicle manufacturers [28]. * **Brazil**: In Brazil, the existence of several rivers aids the predominance of hydroelectric power-generating sources. However, large hydropower dams have significant environmental impacts. Since the 2000s, Brazil has given greater attention to other RE sources in addition to hydropower. 1. In 2002, Brazil released the PROINFA. In that program, FITs were used to produce 3300 MW from the RES (wind, biomass, and hydro plants) [14]. 2. In 2009, the government introduced an auction regime.