The political economy of renewable energy policies in Germany and the EU

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractIn this paper, we employ a public choice perspective to analyze the development of policies for renewable energy sources (RES) in the EU in general and in Germany more specifically. In doing so, we explain the main characteristics of current RES policies in the EU by reference to the self interest driven motivations of voters, stakeholders and political actors. One important puzzle, which we address, is the following: How could effective RES-policies be introduced against the political opposition of fossil-fuel interest groups in the past? Via analyzing the German example in more detail, we show how over time a self-reinforcing interplay of ideological and financial RES support has emerged. Moreover, we demonstrate that observed specific design choices for EU RES policies, such as largely riskless remuneration schemes, high degrees of technology dif ferentiation and decentralized decision-making across Member States, can be traced back to poli ticians' need to balance a variety of partly opposing interests. A major benefit of the presented analysis is that it provides a realistic assessment of the challenges for RES policy reform -any reform effort critically depends on its ability to balance stakeholder interests.

Adoption of solar and wind energy: The roles of carbon pricing and aggregate policy support

“…Germany provides another example of multi-dimensional policy approaches, with early and ambitious renewable energy goals, including detailed regulatory provisions that differentiate between renewable technology types (Strunz et al, 2016), as well as considerable support for solar energy adoption. Solar energy policy support has fallen as the technology has improved, although solar subsidies per megawatt hour were still above the EU average in 2010.…”

Support Policies for Renewables: Instrument Choice and Instrument Change from a Public Choice Perspective

“…Although no formal differentiation takes place (the scheme is implemented uniformly at the national level), there exist indirect ways to account for regional stakes by affecting consecutive reforms of the RES scheme (see Strunz et al 2015). In particular, the German Länder seize every opportunity to promote regional development through RES deployment without impacting on their own state budgets.…”

Introduction and Synthesis

“…Although no formal differentiation takes place (the scheme is implemented uniformly at the national level), there exist indirect ways to account for regional stakes by affecting consecutive reforms of the RES scheme (see Strunz, Gawel, and Lehmann 2016). In particular, the German Länder seize every opportunity to promote regional development through RES deployment without impacting on their own state budgets.…”