Italian Consumers' Willingness to Pay for Renewable Energy Sources

It is well known that EU Directive 2009/72/CE imposes to the European Countries environmental and energy targets. The Italian goal is to attain a 17% share in electricity production from renewable sources by 2020. To make investment in renewables attractive, market prices must be profitable and the gap between the private and social costs of renewables must be filled using “persuasive” tools. Obviously, the acceptance of such a burden may be controversial because it results in an increase in prices. In this context, it becomes crucial to explore the consistency of consumer's willingness to pay (WTP) for electricity production from RES. This study is based on a national survey conducted in November 2007 in Italy. We used a stochastic payment card (SPC) including a “certainty correction” and proposing five degrees of acceptance: definitely yes and no, probably yes and no and “do not know.” An empirical analysis shows that, even by the most conservative estimates, there is a substantial willingness among Italian consumers to partially cover the cost of achieving the RES goal