The impact of policy changes: The opportunities of Community Renewable Energy projects in the UK and the barriers they face

Mirzania, Pegah; Ford, Andy; Andrews, Deborah; Ofori, George; Maidment, Graeme

doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2019.02.066

Cited by 83 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…The growing availability of technologies (e.g. LED lights for energy efficiency) and continued financial support for renewable heat (the RHI for heat generation), coupled with the reduction in support for renewable electricity, may lead to growth in these activities as community energy groups seek new business models 54 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Business models and financial characteristics of community energy in the UK

et al. 2020

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Community energy projects take a decentralised and participatory approach to low-carbon energy. We present a quantitative analysis of business models, financing mechanisms and financial performance of UK community energy projects, based on a new survey. We find that business models depend on technology, project size, and fine-tuning of operations to local contexts. While larger projects rely more on loans, community shares are the most common and cheapest financial instrument in the sector. Community energy has pioneered low-cost citizen finance for renewables, but its future is threatened by reductions, and instability, in policy support. Over 90% of the projects in our sample make a financial surplus during our single-year snapshot, but this falls to just 20% if we remove income from price guarantee mechanisms, such as the Feed-in Tariff. Renewed support and/or business model innovations are therefore needed for the sector to realise its potential contribution to the low-carbon energy transition.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Business models and financial characteristics of community energy in the UK

et al. 2020

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“…The internal emergency is mainly originated from the imbalance of power supply and demand caused by power failure and load variation, which needs a rapid check and then an adjustment of PV power grid (Schmitz et al 2019 ; Al Hadi et al 2020 ). External emergency is mainly caused by the change of environmental factors in PV industry that include policy involvement, market competitiveness, technology progress and financing channels (Sun et al 2014 ; Liu et al 2016 ; Mirzania et al 2019 ; Moslehi and Reddy 2019 ). For example, the emergencies like financial crisis and imbalance of supply and demand may trigger a rise of market risks of PV industry and then influence the whole industry-chain (Ibarloza et al 2018 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The influence of COVID-19 on grid parity of China’s photovoltaic industry

Song

Liu

et al. 2020

Environ Geochem Health

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With the more efficient involvement of both technology and policy factors in China's whole industry-chain, the year 2020 is a key period for photovoltaic (PV) industry to achieve grid parity. In this context, COVID-19 may trigger a certain timedelay in new installed PV projects, thereby bringing an uncertain influence on the whole PV industry. To forecast the influence degree and influence cycle of COVID-19 on PV industry, this paper firstly clarifies the key features of epidemic situation as well as the basic rule of such pandemics' transmission along industry-chain. Then this paper constructs a system dynamics model targeting at cost accounting of PV power generation under the influence of COVID-19 and thus forecasts the variation rules, superposition effects and influence cycle of levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of PV power generation and the operations cost of each subsystem. Empirical results show that PV industry has a lag response to the COVID-19 for 1 quarter and periodic response for 4 quarters, which is mainly embodied in the rise of short-term production cost. At the same time, the influence of COVID-19 on the upstream firms of PV industry is stronger than that on downstream firms. With the gradual recovery of whole industry-chain, LCOE of PV power generation will rapidly return to the previous expected level of grid parity by the end of 2020.

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“…Public support for renewable energy is important for encouraging its introduction in the electricity market, but so is the regulatory stability that offers investors certainty and predictable market conditions [53]. Other countries have made changes in their legislative frameworks [21,[54][55][56] including cuts in the support systems of renewable energies, but the differential element is the retroactive nature of changes in the Spanish case. This work has clearly quantified the economic damage that these changes in the regulations have caused, using real data from a grid-connected PV system that is representative of the sector in Spain.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review of the Legislative Framework for the Remuneration of Photovoltaic Production in Spain: A Case Study

2020

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Spain is among the European countries with the greatest photovoltaic potential. During the first decade of the 2000s, Spain was a European leader in installed photovoltaic power and job creation in the renewable energy sector, strongly influenced by a very favorable regulatory framework and public subsidies at a time of economic growth. That situation would be completely reversed with the regulatory changes introduced in 2012 to combat the tariff deficit and the instability in the electricity supply system, problems accentuated by the economic crisis. The main objective of this study is to present an exhaustive review of the legislative changes that have affected photovoltaic energy in Spain. Using real data on electricity production and the remuneration of a typical photovoltaic plant, we show that there was a very significant fall in the economic returns that investors had come to expect, within a system that prioritized, first and foremost, the initial investment rather than the levels of electricity production. The changes to the legislative framework affecting a typical 100 kWp photovoltaic (PV) facility that entered into service before 2007 provoked a significant decrease of 8.7% in expected revenues, calculated from real data of production and income. These economic losses can be even higher, with a drop in revenue of almost 25% if the entire period of the installation’s useful life is analyzed. Public support for renewable energy is important for its introduction into the electricity market, but so is regulatory stability that offers investment security and predictability for maintaining investment and development in the renewable energy sector.

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The impact of policy changes: The opportunities of Community Renewable Energy projects in the UK and the barriers they face

Cited by 83 publications

References 17 publications

Business models and financial characteristics of community energy in the UK

Business models and financial characteristics of community energy in the UK

The influence of COVID-19 on grid parity of China’s photovoltaic industry

Review of the Legislative Framework for the Remuneration of Photovoltaic Production in Spain: A Case Study

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