GLOBAL REVIEW OF ENERGY POLICY LESSONS FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES Wagner Sousa de Oliveira,1*and Paula Fernanda Varandas Ferreira2 1 2
Department of Production and Systems, University of Minho, Country Portugal Department of Production and Systems, University of Minho, Country Portugal
* Corresponding author:
[email protected], University of Minho, Campus de Azurém, 4800-058, Country Portugal
KEYWORDS Energy Policy, Renewable Energy Technologies, Global Instruments Review ABSTRACT Governments tend globally to appreciate the advantages of renewable energy production more than conventional energy production. Therefore, supporting the expansion of production capacity of Renewable Energy Technologies (RETs) in many manners, which basically aim to reduce the disadvantages of most technologies for renewable energy production: the cost and the lack of controllability. Also essential are policies that create markets, and ensure a fair rate of return for investors. It´s notoriously known wind and solar power are more mature and establish with some competitive costs, taking into consideration the public incentives. Most of the countries with a significant level of RETs in its energy matrix, such as Brazil, Germany, US, China and others have demonstrated that it is possible to create vibrant markets for RETs, and to do so very rapidly; but the results in these same countries also shows that the renewable energy policies have been unsuccessful to date, in some aspect. Most of the renewable energy policies development experienced has been driven by countries with feed-in or pricing approach schemes. In order to adequate the most efficient renewable energy policy instruments most applied by governments to RETs this paper aims to organize a framework to compare and evaluate these instruments (wind and solar power for electricity production) for a different classification as discussed in the specialized literature. INTRODUCTION The renewable energy policy framework developed in the last decade increased globally as results of the direct efforts by the governments to promote RETs, such as wind power, solar power and photovoltaic. In order the RETs to make a significant contribution to economic development in general, it still should be essential to improve the diffusion and introduce more and more the market share in the global energy matrix the renewable resources, reduce RETs costs, and develop new instruments to assure renewable energy resources in the
low-carbon economy. The goal must not be simply to installed capacity, but to provide the conditions to promote a sustained and profitable renewable energy industry in general, which, in fact, will result in increased renewable energy capacity and generation, and will drive down costs. To achieve this step, viable, clear and long-term government participation is fundamental. Finally, the effectiveness and evaluation of policies in promoting RETs will depend on their design, enforcement, how well they consider national macroeconomics circumstances and the extension of the impacts in the economy, environment and society as well. Governments have a number of instruments available to promote RETs in different times of the Renewable Energy Projects (REPs). Also we can see a combination of policies, including standards, education, stakeholder involvement (alliances between public and private sector), and incentives for investments and production to bring down the final costs of RETs and reduce risk in the private view. The development and implementation of appropriate public incentives guaranteeing a specific level of support to different RETs based on their degree of technology maturity, in order to exploit the significant potential of the different RETs over time. Generally, a mix of instruments is essential and a key to success. The combination of renewable energy policies depends on the costs of the RETs analyzed, location and environmental conditions. There is not necessarily a direct link between these policy instruments and specific obstacles to greater use of RETs, as some of the policy options tackle a combination of barriers. The main renewable energy policy instruments are well-known and practiced worldwide. AN OVERVIEW OF GLOBAL ENERGY POLICY FOR RETs PROMOTION Renewable Energy policy instruments generally can be classified into two groups: primary instruments (FITs), quotas with tradable green certificates (TGCs) and tendering schemes) and secondary instruments (fiscal incentives; investment subsidies, and soft loans, among others) (Mir-Artigues & del Río, 2014). Nothing seems easy in common energy policy for RET´s worldwide and
to advance more rapidly and with greater consistency is needed a level of high political commitment, a remarkable volume of investments in energy markets, a clearer regulatory framework and an attitude by national and international regulators that is coordinated, rigorous, independent and predictable, case of wind and solar technologies. The cost of raising capital is a major factor in REPs. This is particularly the case for infrastructure projects like RETs which often involve large up-front costs, and long construction phase lead times and operating lifetimes. Some public strategies adopted in RE sector is to improve the financing terms such as soft interest rates or longer repayment horizons can significantly reduce project costs. German and Indian governments have created special funding agencies (IRENA) to provide loans for REPs at below-market interest rates (subsidizing interest rates). The financing aspects of REPs are particularly important to RETs because are often capital intensive, and therefore require a greater degree of up-front debt and equity than power plants with lower initial capital costs (Wiser & Pickle, 1998). A number of additional factors make it more difficult for RETs to obtain financing at reasonable costs than for other power generation technologies. Many RETs are perceived by the financial community to have high resource and technology risks (Finnerty, 2007; Kitzing, 2014; Wiser, 1997; Wohlgemuth & Madlener, 2000). That´s why it´s necessary to develop and improve RE policies for a mature development of RETs considering the competitiveness of these technologies. According to Saidur, Islam, Rahim, and Solangi (2010) there´s a variety of policies like Feed-In-Tariff (FIT), Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), Renewables Obligations (RO), tax credits, pricing laws, production incentives, quota requirements, trading systems and others have been globally developed and implemented to promote the use of RETs in the last decade. These strategies have main objective such as reducing the environmental impacts, the cost of energy produced in the energy sector, reducing the dependence of fossil fuels and stimulating new industrial energy development. The RPS and the FIT are the most promoted in energy policies. Many researchers discuss about their effectiveness and application, desiring another better solution (Del Río & Cerdá, 2014; Ertürk, 2012; Hoppmann, Huenteler, & Girod, 2014; Kung, 2012; Lesser & Su, 2008; Loiter & Norberg-Bohm, 1999; Menz & Vachon, 2006; Mir-Artigues & del Río, 2014; Ragwitz & Steinhilber, 2014; Saidur et al., 2010). The type of Renewable Energy (RE) policy should be decided by the countries (regions) that which RE policy can be applicable respecting their idiosyncrasies and public objectives for energy issues. In a global view we can notice some RE policy instruments combined in several constries in order to promote RETs and face the climate change challengers.
Figure 1 demonstrates the Auction, FIT, RPS/RO, Tradable Green Certificate (TGC)/Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) Market.
Figure 1: Global RE policy instruments. Source: Azuela and Barroso (2012) We also highlight that TGC/REC system, as a RE policy instruments as well as a kind of “market schemes” that distributors, retailers, and/or customers must meet a percentage of their energy consumption, as set by regulators, from clean or Renewable Energy Resources (RES). Globally, the RE market have been supported by public iniciatives in order to promote and diffuse RETs while they become more competitive in economics aspects. This governamental goal, in general, is achieved by attaining the requisite amount of TGCs/RECs which can be either earned through self-generation or purchased from a renewables market. The world production for electricity, it has been experienced a crescent and fast growing (see Figure 2). The electricity generated from Renewable Energy Sources (RES), also defined as RES-E, remarkable in China, OECD Europe and OECD Americas can be a level absolute an percentual aspects much more expressive tan other parts in the globe.
Figure 2: Global RES-E production by Region. Source: IEA (2013) The global production of electricity from RES is in expansion moment as we demonstrated in Figure 2.
As stated by IEA (2013) in the Medium-Term Renewable Energy Market Report 2013 the expansion of RES-E in a global view. Threre´s an expectation that RES-E will surpass natural gas electricity generation and double that from nuclear power by 2016, taking the second most important position in global electricity source, after coal. Globally, it os expected RE generation to rise to 25% of gross power generation in 2018, up from 20% in 2011 and 19% in 2006. It is also pointed out that wind and solar power will definitely drive this fast-growing of RES-E generation. This RESE behavior can be analyzed as one of the possible reactions of the governaments support for promotion efforts of RETs in the world energy mix. In the first trimester of 2014, at least 144 countries had RE targets and 138 countries had RE policies in place, up from the 138 and 127 countries, respectively (REN21, 2014). Developing and emerging economies have the leadership in the expansion in recent years and account for 95 of the countries with RE policies, up from 15 in 2005. The rate of implementation of RE policies remained slow relative to much of the last 10 years, that it can be attributed to the strong influence of several countries have already enacted RE policies for RETs. This fact is a probably reflection since 2013, there was an increasing focus on revisions to existing RE policies and targets, including retroactive reformulation (redesigning), with some adjustments made to improve RE policy effectiveness and efficiency, and others aimed to curtail costs associated with supporting the deployment of RETs. At the same time, some countries expanded support and adopted ambitious new targets (Brazil, China and US) (Batlle et al., 2012; Kitzing & Mitchell, 2014; Resch et al., 2014; Rizzi, van Eck, & Frey, 2014). On the international level there are numerous energy associations that attempt to influence legislation procedures to their advantage. So understand the most relevant international energy associations within important actors of the energy industry is and advantage for research in energy policy and planning at all. The RE policy instruments in Africa & Middle East there is not a general objection to a FIT systems applied to RETs (wind and photovoltaic power), but the experience shows that FIT system should be designed in a way more consistent with the specific demand for capacity additions according to geographical electricity needs and market policy (Dekker, Nthontho, Chowdhury, & Chowdhury, 2012; IRENA, 2014a, 2014b; Msimanga & Sebitosi, 2014; Musango & Brent, 2011; Winkler, 2005). African countries can create local value along the RE sector, such as in the materials, components, construction, operation and maintenance required for REPs. The RE policies worldwide have been evoluting in a different manner during the last two decades, and one of the supposed motivation was the Kyoto Protocol (Aguirre & Ibikunle, 2014). For example in African
Continent, according to African Development Bank Group (AFDB, 2014) in Table 1, as well as, we can notice that African RE policies focus on environmental as socioeconomic issues of the Africa. Table 1: Overview of RETs in Africa
Source: AFDB (2014) Most of African governments adopts RPS as policy strategy to support RETs taking into consideration the technological maturity of the RETs. Another important trend, FITs premiums, those are Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) with a set price or premium – which can be understood such situation that developer has a price guarantee for a fixed period of time (usually 10 to 15 years) (Deichmann, Meisner, Murray, & Wheeler, 2011; IRENA, 2014a). The African RE policies have also been implemented in several African countries during the last decade, but specially in RETs such as bioenergy, solar power, geothermal, hydropower and wind energy (see Table 1). We also remember that local conditions (laws, contries`infrastructure, energy market development, etc) must be favourable to the implementation of specific RE policy instruments. As decision-makers in some African countries consider the future of energy policies of their countries power sectors (Agencies, Governments sections, and others public energy agents). Moreover, it is satisfactory in a energy policy development as well, for there could well be particular lessons that these other energy market responses. It could lead us to a reflection of efficacy of their energy polices developed. Some RE polocies instruments, case of FITs in developing countries, the renewable energy
consumption per capita is low, which limitate the expansion of this RETs in general. The market-driven variables (consumption, investments, etc) new market capacity development are often much higher than in developed markets (case of North American and European markets) due to macroeconomic`s constries situation and RE policies instruments more mature (IRENA, 2014c, 2014d). The future of the development of the African energy market will have long-term implications for individual welfare, national economic development, and greenhouse gas emissions due to the investment in energy infrastructure spans several decades. So, the results of these impacts must be analyzed in different governaments`s governance. We point out the early technological advancements and cost reductions, the large-scale deployment of RES offers African countries a cost-effective path to fast, sustainable and equitable energy market growth (AFDB, 2014; IRENA, 2014a). In the Middle East region, according to Babiker and Fehaid (2011) one of the the principal lessons and RE policy to be learned include the importance of monitoring the region carbon footprint, the instrinsec roles of incentives and Demand Side Management (DSM) RE policies to promote RETs and reduce Green Houses Gases (GHGs) emissions in the Middle East, the potential gains from actively participating in the international carbon markets through the use of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), focus on efficiency market-based RE policy instruments to achieve the climate change targets and improve the energy sector in economics issues impacted by the nationals RE policies. In view of the reality of Europe, it is perceived that the liberalization process has been in energy market, more theoretical than real. Continues the fragmentation of markets, the interconnections between countries faced with serious political difficulties and energy prices paid by consumers are very heterogeneous, among other reasons, by the difficulties of harmonization of the markets´s differences (Menanteau, Finon, & Lamy, 2003). For these reasons, the EU is obliged to jointly boost their energy market and institutional relations with other countries. But in addition to do it together, you must act in a coordinated manner and avoid that, as it is happening far too often, Member States will seek bilateral agreements with other countries (Sawin, 2006). The RE policy instruments continued to accomplish, considering the techonologic differential by RETs (cost and maturity). Speciallly in Europe, (re)new RE policies are emerging to advance or manage the integration of high shares of RES-E into existing power systems, including support for energy storage (energy back-up systems), demand-side management, and smart grid technologies (Lund, 2009). The political framework for renewables in the EU and OECD is defined by a number of RE policies with some instruments including FITs, RPS, investment subsidies, and tendering procedures. In case of EU, Member states
are free to adopt such instruments according to the energy and macroeconomic situation of the country in question. These instruments really have enabled a remarkable growth of RES-E generation (Enzensberger, Wietschel, & Rentz, 2002; Saidur et al., 2010). Public regulators in the EU and OECD are more stimulated to the technology-specific tariffs (FITs) for periods of up to 20 years. The recipients of FITs is driven to endogenous RES-E power plants that feed in electricity produced into the grid of the member state concerned (Schaffer & Bernauer, 2014) Most EU Countries are applying a FIT and/or FIP system, including Germany, France, Spain, Greece, Portugal and the Netherlands. Another instrument is the RPS, also called quota system, which is a requirement for consumers or their retail suppliers and guarantees that a minimum percentage of the country’s electricity portfolio is produced by RES (Kitzing, 2014; Oikonomou, Flamos, & Grafakos, 2014). Various states of the EU (e.g. UK, Italy, Sweden and Belgium) adopt these instruments.
Figure 3: EU-related RE Policy framework. Source: Ferroukhi et al. (2013) Very few member states of the EU (e.g. France, Ireland) use a RES-E tendering system, whereby tenders can relate to a specific technology or to RES-E in general, case of France. Normally, project developers are offered a long-term PPAs if they submit the lowest kWh asking price. The PPA price could be on a reversed-auction (price as bid) basis or on the basis of a uniform price, i.e. the highest asking price among those of the successful bidders (Resch et al., 2008; Resch et al., 2014). The additional costs of RES-E tenders are usually passed on to the power consumers, we mean, the final costomers pay the additional cost for RES-E, in a microeconomics point of view. For Reiche and Bechberger (2004) RE policy instruments most practiced among the 15 largest
European Member States in the following order: 1º FITs; 2º RPS/RO and 3º Auctions. This trend sould continue for the next years (Ragwitz & Steinhilber, 2014). There is also a combination of different instruments in European energy market. Many of the available instruments can essentially be classified in grants about investment costs and operation (production) (Wohlgemuth & Madlener, 2000). Although we sure have to look deep to the following RE policies, because we can cite some bad experience such as German policies for RETs in the last decade. According to Frondel, Ritter, Schmidt, and Vance (2010) make great efforts in substantial cost associated with Germany’s promotion of RETs, one would expect significantly positive impacts on the environment and economic prosperity, in contrast, the RE policy instruments by which Germany governament promotes RETs unsufficient benefits as expected. At least 18 American states, Japan, and Australia also apply FITs, RPS and mixed RE policy instruments as well (Menz & Vachon, 2006). RES schemes in the EU are national schemes. Since the RETs are characterized by high up-front investment costs, governments (PTC in US) often provide investment subsidies and fiscal incentives to lower the barrier of financing RETs (e.g. tax credits and accelerated depreciation) (Gross, Blyth, & Heptonstall, 2010; Gross, Heptonstall, & Blyth, 2007). An indirect type of investment subsidy is the provision of finance on soft terms (e.g. at a subsidized interest rate) (Aalbers, Shestalova, & Kocsis, 2013). Table 2: Projection of RETs generation (TWh), 2010– 2020, in North America, by country
Source: Angevine, Murillo, and Pencheva (2012) We can point out in Table 2 a 374 terawatt hour (TW-h) (or 8%) increase is projected overall, the largest (186 TW-h) increase is expected to occur in the US, followed by Canada and Mexico. However, in percentage terms the largest increase is projected to occur in Mexico, followed by Canada and the United States. This pattern is consistent with expectations for macroeconomic and population growth in the three countries. Table 3 points out some important aspects of RE policies instruments discussed in this paper.
Table 3: A brief summary of RE policies instruments RE policies instruments Evaluation Item criteria FITs TGC Tendering Eligibility of REPs (new vs. existing)
Intensity of support (constant or decreasing support level)
Duration of support
Size-pecific Support level
Only new REPs commissioned after a specific period are eligible for support
Improve competitiveness
Create a complex Constant over system that lacks time in the Constant of first years over time or transparency and of operation or pre-established comprehend Constant for a fixed % sibility. For quantity of reduction over supply driven generatio over time. RES-E, operational increasing phase. weather and revenue risk. The longer the Period during which support is duration, the guaranteed (e.g.15,20,25 years) more certainty to the investors Size limits have Small-scale Market pros (encourage installations Plant size; trends; small producer) receive more Revenues; employs and TGCs than etc generation, cons (lower large-cale etc economies of installations scale)
Source: adapted from Resch et al. (2014)
CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER RESEARCH The EU and the US are major players on the international energy markets. However, both actors are highly dependent on energy imports from politically and economically insecure regions, such as the Middle East, Central Asia and Russia. While the OECD countries are competing for energy resources with the emerging economies in Asia, first and foremost with India and China, forecasts predict their energy dependency to grows steadily. We need to change the “dominant paradigm” for energy issues globally (Delucchi & Jacobson, 2011). RES-E development has taken different paths across countries, underpinned by different policy frameworks during the last twenty years (Couture & Gagnon, 2010). We could converge to the idea that the combination of two main RE policy instruments, the FIT and the RPS, as many researcher put attention on effectiveness of these two instruments for achieving the countries`environmental objectives, targets and obligations defined in international agreements, such as Kyoto Protocol (Abolhosseini & Heshmati, 2014). RE policies instruments cannot be adopted and implemented without critical levels of support from key groups (industry and government) of interest (Menanteau et al., 2003). The framing of the problem itself can have important implications with respect to what kind of experience is considered important, energy agencies and other economic agents must be involved,
and — as a result — also for the evaluation of internal policy alternatives (Baumgartner et al., 2009). Furthermore, investment and operational costs for electricity through RES, these economic engineering instruments a focus on reducing the high cost of energy produced and stimulate the competitiveness of RETs in comparison with fossil fuel conversion systems. These incentives for operational costs can be paid through a general base rate or through an additional fee charged on behalf of final consumers. In Figure 4 shows some important aspects of global map of RES-E that can change the attention of policy.makers, speailly RE policies worldwide.
Figure 4: Global Map of RES-E. Source: Pazheri, Othman, and Malik (2014) We have to declare that countries as Brazil, Canada, Norway changed strongly their energy matrix. The most remarkable issues is the type of RETs that has been driven this change: hydroelectric power plants, solar and wind power. Due to the proper geography or natural resources? Or a simple reflect of RE policies in these same countries? Even though the highest potential of solar irradiation is a vailable in South Africa and Middle Eastern countries, more than 90% of electric power demand of these countries is met by fossil-fuel based power generation since fossil-fuels are cheap and plentiful in these countries (IRENA, 2014b). Ensure that the promotion of RETs is not an end in itself raises the debate of which RE policy instruments and strategies can potentially justify the development of RETs incrementation (Edenhofer et al., 2013). In the past, the main argument for policy intervention intended to foster and develop RES is to avoid climate impacts of fossil conversion technologies and the public governaments agreements related to environmental issues (Pazheri et al., 2014). RES in addition to economic criteria and the rules of the market, come into the agenda needs, interests and development guidelines for new technologies, as well as the perception of energy as common good, whose universality and continuity assurance constitutes strategic factor of development and social inclusion (Aguirre & Ibikunle, 2014). Thus, RES can contribute to meet poor communities of electricity and the high global growth of electric power consumption (Oikonomou et al., 2014). Renewable energies constitute the engine of
economic, social and technological development. Behind the promotion of important investments, job creation and regional development, and to enhance the development of technological and research clusters. The development of endogenous energy resources represents a high potential for innovation (Oliveira & Fernandes, 2011). Dinica (2006) describes a basic framework to analyze the diffusion of RE potential from the point of view of the investor through energy policies adopted by the government. Pricing policies that provide remuneration to independent production projects can help lower investment risks, create incentives for RES-Electricity (RES-E) which relieves pressure and allows a better integration of RES market (Couture & Gagnon, 2010). This paper discussed about RE policies in a global view through a driven-issues which can be analized into the following points: 1. RE policies globally are highly focused on “real policy costs”and try to minimize them in order to reduce the economical disadvantagens of RETs in energy matrix for stakeholders of RES-E; 2. FITs, used in 20 European Countries, US, China and India, which represent the oldest and most widely used RE policy instrumnent to incentive RETs globally; 3. Establish standards for technology performance to encourage the integration of RETs into structures. Standards must also be set for grid technical issues; 4. Renewable energy development is becoming more complex as renewables increase their share in the global energy matrix; 5. REPs deployment is expected to continue expanding geographically, due to the enormous potential of RES; 6. In some markets with good resources, the Levelized Cost Of Electricity (LCOE) for some RETs (e.g.: onshore wind) is competitive or close to competitiveness versus new coal and natural gas-fired power plants; 7. The competitiveness of RETs depends on the market and policy framework within they operate. RES-E, and particularly wind and solar power, have only recently reached significant levels of penetration in some countries, but they are expected to grow considerably in the next decades (Rao & Kishore, 2010). In some market power (e.g. Denmark, Germany, Spain, and Texas), RETs currently have an important influence on the performance of the energy market by significantly affecting price dynamics, legal market requirements, the need to balance reserves and manage network congestions, etc. Furthermore, RES-E in these markets power have a significant impact on electricity tariffs for final consumer. As Kitzing (2014) discusses about which RE policy instruments in general would be more favourable for society in terms of benefits. For such an analysis, not
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