The role of governments in renewable energy: The importance of policy consistency

White, William A.; Lunnan, Anders; Nybakk, Erlend; Kulišić, Biljana

doi:10.1016/j.biombioe.2012.12.035

Cited by 130 publications

(72 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Although the idea that discontinuities in policy support may discourage RE deployment has already attracted the attention of energy policy scholars, the question has so far been addressed using case-based approaches, for specific technologies such as biomass and mostly from the point of view of RE investors (White et al, 2013). We complement this work by examining the impact of policy variability on both innovation creation and diffusion, and for the whole range of RE technologies.…”

Section: Innovation Support Mechanisms For Environmental Technologiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Economic Growth Matter? Technology-Push, Demand-Pull and Endogenous Drivers of Innovation in the Renewable Energy Industry

2014

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This paper aims to contribute to the longstanding technology-push vs. demand-pull debate and to the literature on renewable energy policy assessment. We argue that in addition to the traditional push-pull dichotomy, the drivers of technological change must be differentiated by whether they are exogenous or endogenous to the economic system and must be assessed with respect to their contribution to both the creation and the diffusion of innovation. We apply this perspective to study innovation in the renewable energy (RE) industry in 15 European Union countries from 1990 to 2012. Using different panel data estimators, we find that public R&D investments, policies supporting RE and per capita income all have a positive effect on either innovation creation or diffusion, whereas the variability of policy support has a negative impact on diffusion. However, impacts are heterogeneous and differ depending on the innovation dimension considered. Most importantly, we find that economic growth is a stronger driver of RE diffusion than technology-push or exogenous demand-pull mechanisms, whereas it is relatively ineffective at stimulating innovation creation. The effect of economic growth on RE diffusion exhibits a nonlinear, U-shaped pattern that resonates with the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis. RE penetration remains negligible at low levels of growth whereas it increases sharply only after income per capita has reached a given threshold. This effect has both a direct cause (with increased affluence demand for environmental quality rises) and an indirect cause (with increased affluence expensive RE policies become more affordable and get implemented more extensively). Our findings have implications for policy making. They suggest that for RE diffusion to increase, innovation policies should be carefully balanced. Government action should be directed not only at shielding renewables from competition with fossil fuel technologies, but also at stimulating aggregated demand and economic growth.

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Section: Innovation Support Mechanisms For Environmental Technologiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Economic Growth Matter? Technology-Push, Demand-Pull and Endogenous Drivers of Innovation in the Renewable Energy Industry

2014

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“…Systemic policies such as longterm planning and policy support accelerate both early and later investments [5,39,72]. Especially consistency, stringency and predictability to reduce deep uncertainty and policy risk are deemed crucial [73,74].…”

Section: Innovation Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

A diverse and resilient financial system for investments in the energy transition

Polzin

Sanders

Taübe

2017

Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability

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Diversity makes the financial system more resilient. In addition, there is a diverse investment demand to make the transition to a more sustainable energy system. We need, among others, investment in energy transition, circular resource use, better water management and reducing air pollution. The two are linked. Making the financial system more diverse implies more equity, less debt, more non-bank intermediation and more specialized niche banks giving more relation based credit. This will arguably also increase the flow of funds and resources to innovative, small scale, experimental firms that will drive the sustainability transition. Higher diversity and resilience in financial markets is thus complementary and perhaps even instrumental to engineer the transition to clean energy in the real economy.

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“…When the market fails, there should be intervention of some changes by government policy makers (White et al 2013). The different role is played by government such as to evaluate costs and benefits, control assets and resources, require long-term commitments and allocate the development of a waste-to-energy facility with an energy efficient distribution infrastructure (Hawkey et al 2013).…”

Section: Government Policies and Their Responsibilitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, a policy needs to be formulated with precautions making it fit enough to handle changes in the political and economic landscape. A plant and its associated energy distribution network should be able to predict how they would function when changes occur (White et al 2013). Consequently, a successful WTE supply chain among plants can demonstrate its environmental and economic benefits, as suggested by the national sustainable development policy (Shih et al 2006).…”

Section: Government Policies and Their Responsibilitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring untapped energy potential of urban solid waste

Vaish

Srivastava

Singh

et al. 2016

Energ. Ecol. Environ.

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There is continuous increase in quantum and variety of waste being generated by anthropogenic activities. Burgeoning amount of waste being generated has potential to harm the environment and human health. Aggravating the problem, ever-increasing energy demand is putting strain on the non-renewable sources of energy and there is huge gap between the demand and supply of energy. This has led the scientific communities to adopt innovative methods to reduce, reuse and recycle them. Therefore, there is an urgent need to minimize the quantity of waste and meet the current demand profile of energy is required; technologies to recover energy from waste can play a vital role in substantial energy recovery and reduction in waste for final disposal; in addition to meet the rising energy requirement. Generating power from waste has greatly reduced the environmental impact and dependency on fossil fuels for electricity generation. Economically also it is an optimal solution for recovery of heat and power from waste. This paper gives an overview of energy potential stored in waste, major available waste-to-energy technologies and also strategic action plan for implementation of these technologies.

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The role of governments in renewable energy: The importance of policy consistency

Cited by 130 publications

References 14 publications

Does Economic Growth Matter? Technology-Push, Demand-Pull and Endogenous Drivers of Innovation in the Renewable Energy Industry

Does Economic Growth Matter? Technology-Push, Demand-Pull and Endogenous Drivers of Innovation in the Renewable Energy Industry

A diverse and resilient financial system for investments in the energy transition

Exploring untapped energy potential of urban solid waste

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