Interaction between CO2 emissions trading and renewable energy subsidies under uncertainty: feed-in tariffs as a safety net against over-allocation

We study the interactions between a CO₂ emissions trading system (ETS) and renewable energy subsidies under uncertainty over electricity demand and energy costs. We develop an analytical model and a numerical model applied to the European Union electricity market in which renewable energy subsidies are justified only by CO₂ abatement. We confirm that in this context, when uncertainty is small, renewable energy subsidies are not welfare-improving, but we show that when uncertainty is large enough, these subsidies increase expected welfare because they provide CO₂ abatement even in the case of over-allocation, i.e. when the cap is higher than the emissions which would have occurred without the ETS. The source of uncertainty is important when comparing the various types of renewable energy subsidies. Under uncertainty over electricity demand, renewable energy costs or gas prices, a feed-in tariff brings higher expected welfare than a feed-in premium because it provides a higher subsidy when it is actually needed i.e. when the electricity price is low. Under uncertainty over coal prices, the opposite result holds true.

Key policy insights

• Due to the possibility of over-allocation in an ETS, subsidies to renewable energies can increase expected welfare, even when climate change mitigation is the only benefit from renewables taken into account.

• In most cases studied, a feed-in tariff brings a higher expected welfare than a feed-in premium.

• The European Commission guidelines on State aid for energy, which incentivize member States to replace feed-in tariffs by feed-in premiums, should be reconsidered based on these results.

     

CDM and national policy: Synergy or conflict? Evidence from the wind power sector in China

This study assesses the effectiveness of a mix of policy instruments including the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and the Feed-in Tariff (FIT) to induce wind technology diffusion in China. Relying on a panel dataset consisting of information from 1207 CDM wind projects in thirty provinces over the period 2004–2011, the empirical analysis indicates that: first, wind energy deployment responds primarily to those counterfactual emissions which would have occurred in the absence of the wind projects; second, the dynamic efficiency of the FIT subsidy shows a potential incompatibility with the CDM incentive; third, the leverage of the CDM on wind investment is supported by the industry and technology policy package, which explains in large part the decrease in the FIT subsidy. Given these findings, suggestions are made regarding the design of a future carbon offset scheme and its link with mitigation action in developing countries.     

Aligning emissions trading and feed-in tariffs in China

In 2013, China launched its domestic pilot emissions trading scheme (ETS) as a cost-effective strategy to reduce CO₂ emissions. Theoretically, the ETS can interact with the feed-in tariffs (FITs) applied to renewable energies (REN). This article presents a simple method to demonstrate how FITs can be adjusted based on the evolution of ETS carbon prices in order to provide a cost-effective climate policy package in China. First, by using provincial data and wind and solar power as examples, it calculates the implicit carbon prices that FITs generate in different Chinese provinces and finds that they are much higher than current carbon prices in the pilot ETS. This shows the necessity of using both instruments to guarantee current level incentives to develop REN for climate change purposes, at least in the short and medium terms. Second, by keeping the annual total carbon price level stable (the sum of the implicit FIT carbon price and the ETS carbon price), and taking into account the cost evolution of REN development, this article demonstrates, for the 2018–2020 period, that FIT should decrease at an annual rate of 3.04–4.63% (for wind) and 7.84–8.87% (for solar) based on different growth rates for progressive national ETS carbon prices.

Policy relevance

There are a number of studies and debates on the interactions between climate policies in Europe in particular, ETS and subsidies for REN. The key issue is that a climate policy package should be cost-efficient and the implementation of one policy should not jeopardise the performance of another. For a country like China, a considerable scale effect on climate target achievement and total cost savings could be produced by the careful design of the climate policy package. FIT and ETS, which are cost-efficient policies if implemented separately, will very probably constitute a major climate policy package in the future in China, which is aiming to limit the use of command-and-control policies. So far, there is some debate on how to reduce FIT for wind power in China due to development cost changes. But discussions are lacking on the linkage between FIT and ETS. This paper fills this gap.     

The transition of the electricity system towards decarbonization: the need for change in the market regime

The mainstream community of energy experts is not aware of the long-term impacts that carbon policies directly concerned with promoting the development of low-carbon technologies produce on the electricity market regime. Long-term market coordination should be replaced by public coordination with long-term arrangements. The current market coordination makes carbon pricing ineffective in orienting investors towards capital-intensive low-carbon technologies. Fossil fuel generation technologies are preferred because their investment risks are much lower in the market regime, even with a high but unstable carbon price. Thus, in order to avoid delaying investment that is aimed at the decarbonization of the electricity system, a number of new market arrangements that lower the investment risk of low-carbon technologies and provide output-based subsidization have or are being selected by governments. As the use of low-carbon equipment to produce electricity develops, long-term market coordination for other technologies (e.g. peaking units, combined cycle gas turbine) will fade away because they alter the market price setting. Thus it is likely that, in the future, public coordination and planning will replace the decisions of market players not only for low-carbon technologies but also for every other type of capacity development.

Policy relevance

The development of renewables as promoted by both feed-in tariffs and green certificate obligations, which answer to different market failures, is well known. Similar long-term arrangements, which both subsidize and de-risk low-carbon investments for every small-sized and large-sized technology, shift learning costs and risks onto consumers. Energy experts and regulators have ignored that the expansion and generalization of these arrangements are changing the coordination function of the electricity markets. Apart from those in the UK, they are still unaware of the impacts that such technology-focused policies produce on the electricity market regime. The transition from market coordination to public coordination, which is inconsistent with the market principles of European electricity legislation, and long-term contracting is inevitable and should be anticipated.