Mischa Bechberger

Policy differences in the promotion of renewable energies in the EU member states

Abstract The EU directive on the promotion of electricity produced from renewable energy sources (RES) has established reference targets for the share of RES electricity in each EU Member States power supply. To reach this goal every EU country follows a different promotion strategy and some deployed instruments seem more successful in increasing the share of RES electricity than others. But we argue that there is no “natural” superiority of any instrument because the success depends on the respective framework conditions in the individual Member State on the one hand and the specific style of the used promotion models on the other. We conclude by identifying a number of success conditions for an increased use of RES: long-term planning security for investors, technology-specific remuneration for green power, strong efforts in the field of the power supply systems (grid extension, fair access to the grid, etc.) and measures to reduce local resistance against RES projects.

Renewable energy policy in Germany: pioneering and exemplary regulations

The development of renewable energy in Germany has been a great success: 9 % share of green electricity in 2002, world leader in terms of installed wind capacity amounting to 13,512 MW in October 2003 (nearly 40 % of the global capacity), second largest installed photovoltaic capacity in the world (nearly 350 MW at the end of September 2003), European leader in the sale of biodiesel (550,000 tonnes per year at the end of 2002) and in solar heating systems, with 4.75 million m 2 of installed systems at the end of 2002. To understand the success it is necessary to know that it results from – besides suitable background conditions – a comprehensive promotion approach which was launched at the beginning of the 1990s and has been given a further boost, since the coming into office of the Social Democratic-Green government in autumn 1998, through a series of promotion measures. Since 1991, with the coming into force of the first German feed-in law, the Act on Supplying Electricity from Renewables (Stromeinspeisegesetz, StrEG), fixed remuneration has been paid to electricity based on renewable energy sources (RES), leading to the market breakthrough in wind energy. Its successor, the Renewable Energy Sources Act (Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz, EEG) in April 2000, improved the regulations of the StrEG in many respects and made market entry possible for other renewables such as solar photovoltaics and biomass energy. The positive RES development in Germany can be explained by, besides this key promotion measure which served as a subsidy for the operational costs, several promotion programmes, which supported RES through investment subsidies (in the form of grants or soft loans), tax exemptions (within the scope of the Environmental Tax Reform) or in a more indirect way, through the decision to phase out nuclear energy, by means of information dissemination (i.e., the RES export initiative of the federal government) and corporate financing schemes in the case of wind energy.

Renewable Energies in Developing Countries: Issues, Interests, and Implications

This article deals with the question of how renewable energies can contribute to a sustainable development of the “South”. The authors argue that the promotion of renewable energies entails a number of benefits for developing countries, including the protection of natural resources, reduction of health risks, increased access to modern energy, reduction of dependence on energy imports, and promotion of economic development. On the other hand, industrialised countries should also have a vital interest in the dissemination of renewable energies in the South, because of the problem of global climate change and the export interests of their renewable energy industries. In order to achieve an increased utilisation of renewable energies in developing countries, a number of barriers - such as a lack of finance and of political support for renewables - have to be removed. The authors suggest to ways in which these barriers may be overcome.