Renewable energy barriers and coping strategies: Evidence from the Baltic States

Abstract

Renewable energy sources (RES) are the main drivers of sustainable energy development. Notwithstanding the substantial expansion of renewables in the past decade, boosted by the various policies and measures, renewable energy sources are still far from full incorporation into the energy markets. It is necessary to overcome the remaining impediments for renewables to realize the energy transition to 100% renewable energy. The aim of this research is to analyze the main barriers of renewables and success of policies dealing with these barriers. The case studies in the Baltic States provide concrete examples of policies and their impacts in terms of overcoming barriers in relevant sectors: heating and cooling, power and transport. The assessment of policies in the Baltic States shows that there are a few measures that are implemented in the transport sector, although this sector encounters many social, economic, technological, and regulatory barriers. The countries have achieved the lowest results in approaching RES targets in transport. New financial incentives and investments in the development of infrastructure for electric vehicles are crucial for the development of markets of electric vehicles. K E Y W O R D S barriers and drivers of renewables, sustainable energy, sustainable energy policies, the Baltic States

Sustainable regional energy planning: The case of hydro

“…Therefore, local governments are very interested in attracting investments and coping with environmental restriction imposed for renewables in their regions (Fiutowska & Dąbrowski, 2013; Lu et al, 2019).…”

Evolution of External Health Costs of Electricity Generation in the Baltic States

“…There are these main types of support measures to support RES implemented in the Baltic States: price-based administratively regulation mechanisms (feed-in tariffs, providing guarantees to purchase renewable electricity at fixed price per kWh electricity, and feed-in premiums, which are adding premiums for renewables on the top of the market price of power), quantity-based or flexible market instruments (tradable green certificates with renewable quota obligations requiring the certain share of RES in power generation, tendering schemes or bidding systems providing opportunity for investors in RES projects to compete for supply contracts to build additional RES based electricity generation capacities), and other instruments (carbon taxes, tax allowances, and investment and financial incentives) [56].…”

System for assessing the sustainability conditions of small hydro plants by fuzzy logic

“…Despite the expansion of renewables in the past decade, boosted by the various policies and measures, renewable energy sources are still far from full incorporation into the energy markets (Lu et al, 2019). It is known that governmental actors have continuously presented dam projects as policies for sustainable development, modernity, and progress (Baird, Shoemaker, & Manorom, 2015;Schapper et al, 2019), although the negative appreciation of very large number of scientists, environmental activists, and members of public about the negative impacts that outweigh in the SHPs implantation (Abbasi & Abbasi, 2011).…”