European governments have agreed to increase the share of renewable energy in final energy consumption to 20% by 2020. A crucial question for policy makers is how to mobilise the additional capital investments in RE and which consumer expenditures are involved. The article describes policy options for reducing renewable energy technology (RET) project costs as well as consumer costs, based on research conducted in de Jager et al., 2011 and Rathmann et al., 2011. The results show that risk-sensitive RET policies are crucial for attracting sufficient RET investments until 2020 and achieving the targets cost-effectively. They not only reduce the RET financing costs, but also the project development costs and market gap. There are also other options that can significantly reduce the RET support costs, i.e. the adjustment of support levels to generation costs, phasing out subsidies for conventional energies, and the cost-optimisation of the supported RET portfolio, either th rough increased cooperation between member states or through changes in the supported technology mix. Overall, further improvement and coordination of existing policy frameworks seems more promising than drastic system changes, as the latter would create additional uncertainties and potentially negative effects on RET growth and project costs
With Directive 2009/28/EC, the European Parliament and Council have laid the grounds for the policy framework for renewable energy sources (RES) in the European Union until 2020. The aim of this paper is to look more closely beyond 2020, well in advance, contrasting and analysing potential RES policy options that are currently being discussed. Generally the assessment includes RES in all energy sectors but a topical focus is put on renewable electricity, specifically within the discussion of policy options for a harmonisation of RES support. The results of the policy assessment indicate that cooperation and coordination among Member States appear beneficial to tackle current problems in RES markets, and fruitful for the period beyond 2020. By contrast, "simplistic approaches" to RES policy harmonisation, for example via a uniform RES certificate trading, are not suitable to ensure substantial future RES growth.
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