Policy Chain of Energy Transition from Economic and Innovative Perspectives: Conceptual Framework and Consistency Analysis

Abstract

Climate change mitigation in energy systems has experienced a remarkable evolution over the past decades. In recent years, renewable energy and energy efficiency have made significant technological and deployment advancements, spurred by policy support, technology development, and cost reduction. Despite advancements in the concepts of innovation and sustainability transition, policy mix studies face challenges in policy regarding the process of energy transition. In fact, there is a need to deepen knowledge of many relevant transition policy design dimensions in order to address unresolved questions about why policymakers choose some instruments over others in the context of an existing or desired mix, how specific policy instruments operate in a mix that has a direct impact on policy performance, and how the transition policy can be evaluated in terms of achieving the desired outcome of CO2 reduction. In an attempt to conceptualize a policy design for energy transition, this research develops a conceptual framework consisting of a policy chain in energy transition from economic and innovation perspectives. This chain has five links, corresponding to policies supporting decarbonization, transformation, renewable energy deployment, energy saving, and CO2 emissions. A consistency analysis of the sub-indicators using data from ten leading European countries was performed, and the reliability of four links, excluding energy saving, was confirmed. The economic and innovation perspectives of the developed framework, which are aligned with the reliability analysis of each index of the framework, answer the question posed in this paper regarding actual features in energy transition. A complete energy transition requires economic signals and a fiscal system (Link1: supportive policies of decarbonization) that are aligned with all of the policy contributions in terms of strategic investments for technology development (Link2: transformation and technological development). Energy policy schemes, including taxation, subsidization and RD&D in technology related to climate change mitigation, increase motivations for alternative energy exploitation (Link3: RE deployment), which adds to the advance actions by individuals and firms in terms of energy saving (Link4), all of which combine to result in a change in greenhouse gas emissions (Link5: CO2 emission).

Redispatch Model for Real Time Operation with High Solar-Wind Penetration and its Adaptation to the Ancillary Services Market

“…Thirdly, three thermal states of the starting costs (hot, warm and cold) are defined as a function of the on and off times, according to Equations ( 4)- (8). In fourth place, there are the technical restrictions of the dispatch power between technical minimum and maximum generation, according to Equation (9). Finally, in fifth place is the power balance coupling constraint, according to Equations ( 10)- (11).…”

“…The energy transition is governed by a set of regulatory policies and economic perceptions that influence the development of renewable generation technologies to reduce emissions from coal-fired thermal generation through accelerated decarbonization [9]. Global warming implies that the energy transition should cover all levels of the system demand with a focus on residential consumption that allows the establishment of a regulatory policy that unifies the entire generation, transmission and especially the demand segment [10].…”