The overlapping impact of the Emission Trading System (ETS) and renewable energy (RE) deployment targets creates a classic case of interaction effects. Whereas the price interaction is widely recognized and has been thoroughly discussed, the effect of an overlapping instrument on the abatement...

Given the ambitious goal of the European Union to achieve CO2 emission reduction, support to renewable energies, and increased energy efficiency a portfolio of different policies is going to be implemented or is already in place in the member states. These instruments have at least partly...

Concern over emissions and climate change has led over half of the states to enact "renewable portfolio standard" legislation requiring regulated electric utilities to obtain some fraction of their power requirements from sources defined as "renewable." Legislation to institute a federal RPS may...

A variety of renewable electricity policies to promote investment in wind, solar, and other types of renewable generators exist across the United States. The federal renewable energy investment tax credit, the federal renewable energy production tax credit, and state renewable portfolio...

The most common reason for scrapping a wind turbine in Denmark is to make room for a newer turbine. The decision to scrap a wind turbine is then highly dependent on an opportunity cost that comes from the interaction of scarce land resources, technological change and changes in subsidy policy....

In the United States, renewable portfolio standards (“RPSs”) dominate as the renewable energy policy tool of choice. Feed-in tariffs (“FITs”), common in Europe and other parts of the world, thus have come to be seen by many policymakers as a binary alternative -- to promote renewable...

This contribution discusses WTO subsidies disciplines in the context of the energy sector. After laying out the relevant disciplines, it will discuss the paradox of WTO law with respect to subsidies towards fossil fuels vis-à-vis those towards renewable energy. It is clear that subsidies on...

This paper exploits the exogeneity of weather conditions to evaluate renewable energy (RE) subsidy programs in Germany and Spain in terms of their costs for reducing carbon dioxide emissions. We find that both the aggregate costs and the distribution of costs between energy producers and...

Feed-in tariffs are extremely popular. Ubiquitous in Europe and across the globe, studies often suggest that feed-in tariffs (“FITs”) tend to outperform renewable portfolio standards (“RPSs”). The accepted logic is that this is because FITs offer certainty RPSs do not. Under a feed-in...

Decarbonizing the global energy matrix through investments in renewable energy (RE) is considered a pathway to mitigate the effects of global climate change. Auctions have become an increasingly popular policy instrument for this purpose. In the last few years, auctions have been rapidly adopted...