This paper presents evidence that the accumulating cost of Germany’s ambitious plan to transform its system of energy provision – the so-called Energiewende – is butting up against consumers’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) for it. Following a descriptive presentation that traces the German...

The stylized model presented in this paper extends the approach developed by Fischer and Newell (2008) by analysing the optimal policy design in a context with more than one externality while taking explicitly into account uncertainty surrounding future emission damage costs. In the presence of...

The Chinese government is vigorously promoting commercialization of renewable energy and bioproducts, given environmental issues plus food, energy, and national security concerns, according to Chinese industry experts at the August 2010 “China Bioenergy Workshop” and its related technical...

This paper aims to analyze what happens with renewable energy power plants, such as onshore wind, photovoltaics and biomass, when the public policy support based on the Renewable Energy Law expires. With its expiration the first renewable energy (and especially onshore wind) power plants will...

This paper, focusing on the renewable portfolio standard (RPS), evaluates alternative renewable energy policies. We propose a tractable equilibrium model which provides a structural representation of Korea's electricity market, including its energy settlement system and renewable energy...

This paper examines developments in the renewable electricity sector in Brazil and China since 2000. The two countries share many interests with respect to solar and wind power, but institutional differences in state-business relations led to different outcomes. In China, in a context of state...

Despite ambitious climate goals and already substantial stocks of developed fossil energy reserves, development of new fossil energy reserves continues to be high. This raises concerns, as it reinforces the fossil industry’s opportunities and incentives to continue extraction, and may...

During a time in which the subject of climate change is deemed high on the list of priorities of many governments, it is important to assess to what extent policies in this field are achieving meaningful results. The link between energy usage and global warming is clear and today in the European...

The main obstacle to developing green energy projects is lack of access to finance. For larger energy projects (e.g., large hydropower projects), insurance and pensions are sustainable financing alternatives. Large energy projects are long-term investment projects; banks are not able to provide...

Companies are increasingly choosing to procure their power from renewable energy sources, with their own set of potential challenges. In this paper we focus on contracts to procure electricity from renewable sources that are inherently unreliable (such as wind and solar). We determine the...