The Political Economy of Financing Climate Policy -- Evidence from the Solar Pv Subsidy Programs

When do circular business models resolve barriers to residential solar PV adoption?

“…Insufficient trust in governments appears a barrier that is more often expressed by male respondents and respondents with large household sizes. The latter result is not surprising, since unexpected policy shifts leading to a sudden reversal of net metering in Flanders affected large households most (De Groote et al, 2022). Next, it appears that mostly respondents living outside cities and risk averse respondents tend to wait for improved technologies.…”

“…Research on enabling policies to stimulate residential solar PV adoption focus on the optimal design or evaluation of specific measures, such as tradeable green current certificate systems (Verbruggen, 2004;Verbruggen and Laes, 2021) and subsidized tax deductions (D'Adamo et al, 2022), or the possibility to create renewable energy communities (Conradie et al, 2021;Felice et al, 2022). Other studies focus on comparisons between countries (De Boeck et al, 2016;Huijben et al, 2016), unintended consequences of support mechanisms (Boccard and Gautier, 2021), and on the importance of trust in governments when designing and implementing supportive policies (De Groote et al, 2022). Nevertheless, most studies mentioned in this overview do not explore the potential of circular economy strategies in general or circular business models in particular.…”

“…A lack of governmental trust also has been identified earlier as an important barrier for solar PV adoption (Petrovich et al, 2021). In Flanders, this can be explained because of a strong increase in popular distrust after major reforms including a withdrawal of earlier promises to safeguard net metering advantages for a long period of time (De Groote et al, 2022;Juwet and Deruytter, 2021;Stam, 2018). The latter example may have caused a shift in expectations on the financial advantages of PV adoption, triggering dynamics of loss aversion (Klein and Deissenroth, 2017).…”

“…Recent policy reforms include a fading out of tradeable green current certificates and net metering, and the introduction of a prosumer tariff. The combination of these reforms, combined with political commotion resulting in the dismissal of the minister of energy in 2016, and a ruling by the Belgian Constitutional Court in 2021 that caused the Flemish Government to revoke on earlier promises, resulted in popular distrust in solar PV (De Groote et al, 2022;Juwet and Deruytter, 2021;Stam, 2018). Yet, solar energy uptake in Flanders is high, with an installed power of 691 W/capita, and 103 installations per 1000 inhabitants in August 2022 (Flemish Government, 2022).…”

Market-Specific Barriers and Enablers for Organizational Investments in Solar PV—Lessons from Flanders

“…Yet, solar PV policies in industrialized countries have mainly benefited affluent households, creating regressive redistributive effects [6][7][8]. These regressive effects stem from economic measures (e.g., green current certificates), fiscal policy measures (e.g., tax incentives), and the fact that not all households have legal, financial, or technical access to solar PV [9][10][11].…”