IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v39y2011i9p5099-5104.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What drives renewable energy development?

Author

Listed:
  • Alagappan, L.
  • Orans, R.
  • Woo, C.K.

Abstract

This viewpoint reviews renewable energy development in 14 markets that differ in market structure (restructured vs. not restructured), use of feed-in-tariff (FIT) (yes vs. no), transmission planning (anticipatory vs. reactive), and transmission interconnection cost allocated to a renewable generator (high vs. low). We find that market restructuring is not a primary driver of renewable energy development. Renewable generation has the highest percent of total installed capacity in markets that use a FIT, employ anticipatory transmission planning, and have loads or end-users paying for most, if not all, of the transmission interconnection costs. In contrast, renewable developers have been less successful in markets that do not use a FIT, employ reactive transmission planning, and have generators paying for most, if not all, of the transmission interconnection costs. While these policies can lead to higher penetration of renewable energy in the short run, their high cost to ratepayers can threaten the economic sustainability of renewable energy in the long-run.

Suggested Citation

  • Alagappan, L. & Orans, R. & Woo, C.K., 2011. "What drives renewable energy development?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(9), pages 5099-5104, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:39:y:2011:i:9:p:5099-5104
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421511004575
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yatchew, Adonis & Baziliauskas, Andy, 2011. "Ontario feed-in-tariff programs," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(7), pages 3885-3893, July.
    2. Sioshansi, Ramteen & Hurlbut, David, 2010. "Market protocols in ERCOT and their effect on wind generation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(7), pages 3192-3197, July.
    3. Woo, Chi-Keung & Horowitz, Ira & Martin, Jennifer, 1998. "Reliability Differentiation of Electricity Transmission," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 277-292, May.
    4. Woo, Chi-Keung & Lloyd, Debra & Tishler, Asher, 2003. "Electricity market reform failures: UK, Norway, Alberta and California," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(11), pages 1103-1115, September.
    5. Steggals, Will & Gross, Robert & Heptonstall, Philip, 2011. "Winds of change: How high wind penetrations will affect investment incentives in the GB electricity sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 1389-1396, March.
    6. Vincent Rious & Jean-Michel Glachant & Yannick Perez & Philippe Dessante, 2008. "Anticipation for Efficient Electricity Transmission Network Investments," Post-Print hal-00339254, HAL.
    7. Traber, Thure & Kemfert, Claudia, 2011. "Gone with the wind? -- Electricity market prices and incentives to invest in thermal power plants under increasing wind energy supply," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 249-256, March.
    8. Hoogwijk, Monique & de Vries, Bert & Turkenburg, Wim, 2004. "Assessment of the global and regional geographical, technical and economic potential of onshore wind energy," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 889-919, September.
    9. Woo, Chi-Keung & Chow, Larry C.H. & Owen, Anthony, 2011. "Guest editors' introduction," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(7), pages 3883-3884, July.
    10. Lusztig, C. & Feldberg, P. & Orans, R. & Olson, A., 2006. "A survey of transmission tariffs in North America," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 1017-1039.
    11. Woo, C.K. & Horowitz, I. & Moore, J. & Pacheco, A., 2011. "The impact of wind generation on the electricity spot-market price level and variance: The Texas experience," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(7), pages 3939-3944, July.
    12. Mitchell, C. & Bauknecht, D. & Connor, P.M., 2006. "Effectiveness through risk reduction: a comparison of the renewable obligation in England and Wales and the feed-in system in Germany," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 297-305, February.
    13. Newbery, David, 2010. "Market design for a large share of wind power," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(7), pages 3131-3134, July.
    14. Wu, F.F & Zheng, F.L. & Wen, F.S., 2006. "Transmission investment and expansion planning in a restructured electricity market," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 954-966.
    15. Olson, Arne & Orans, Ren & Allen, Doug & Moore, Jack & Woo, C.K., 2009. "Renewable Portfolio Standards, Greenhouse Gas Reduction, and Long-Line Transmission Investments in the WECC," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 22(9), pages 38-46, November.
    16. Woo, C.K. & Lloyd, D. & Borden, M. & Warrington, R. & Baskette, C., 2004. "A robust internet-based auction to procure electricity forwards," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 1-11.
    17. Pollitt, M.G., 2010. "UK Renewable Energy Policy Since Privatisation," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1007, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    18. Zarnikau, Jay, 2011. "Successful renewable energy development in a competitive electricity market: A Texas case study," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(7), pages 3906-3913, July.
    19. Sensfuß, Frank & Ragwitz, Mario & Genoese, Massimo, 2008. "The merit-order effect: A detailed analysis of the price effect of renewable electricity generation on spot market prices in Germany," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 3076-3084, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Woo, C.K. & Sreedharan, P. & Hargreaves, J. & Kahrl, F. & Wang, J. & Horowitz, I., 2014. "A review of electricity product differentiation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 262-272.
    2. Woo, C.K. & Chen, Y. & Olson, A. & Moore, J. & Schlag, N. & Ong, A. & Ho, T., 2017. "Electricity price behavior and carbon trading: New evidence from California," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 531-543.
    3. Chi-Keung Woo, Ira Horowitz, Jay Zarnikau, Jack Moore, Brendan Schneiderman, Tony Ho, and Eric Leung, 2016. "What Moves the Ex Post Variable Profit of Natural-Gas-Fired Generation in California?," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3).
    4. Woo, C.K. & Moore, J. & Schneiderman, B. & Ho, T. & Olson, A. & Alagappan, L. & Chawla, K. & Toyama, N. & Zarnikau, J., 2016. "Merit-order effects of renewable energy and price divergence in California’s day-ahead and real-time electricity markets," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 299-312.
    5. Zarnikau, J. & Zhu, S. & Woo, C.K. & Tsai, C.H., 2020. "Texas's operating reserve demand curve's generation investment incentive," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    6. Woo, C.K. & Zarnikau, J. & Moore, J. & Horowitz, I., 2011. "Wind generation and zonal-market price divergence: Evidence from Texas," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(7), pages 3928-3938, July.
    7. Sreedharan, P. & Farbes, J. & Cutter, E. & Woo, C.K. & Wang, J., 2016. "Microgrid and renewable generation integration: University of California, San Diego," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 709-720.
    8. Woo, C.K. & Shiu, A. & Liu, Y. & Luo, X. & Zarnikau, J., 2018. "Consumption effects of an electricity decarbonization policy: Hong Kong," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 887-902.
    9. Zarnikau, J. & Woo, C.K. & Zhu, S. & Tsai, C.H., 2019. "Market price behavior of wholesale electricity products: Texas," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 418-428.
    10. Sreedharan, P. & Miller, D. & Price, S. & Woo, C.K., 2012. "Avoided cost estimation and cost-effectiveness of permanent load shifting in California," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 115-121.
    11. Cao, K.H. & Qi, H.S. & Tsai, C.H. & Woo, C.K. & Zarnikau, J., 2021. "Energy trading efficiency in the US Midcontinent electricity markets," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 302(C).
    12. Chi-Keung Woo, Ira Horowitz, Brian Horii, Ren Orans, and Jay Zarnikau, 2012. "Blowing in the Wind: Vanishing Payoffs of a Tolling Agreement for Natural-gas-fired Generation of Electricity in Texas," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    13. Woo, C.K. & Horowitz, I. & Moore, J. & Pacheco, A., 2011. "The impact of wind generation on the electricity spot-market price level and variance: The Texas experience," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(7), pages 3939-3944, July.
    14. Woo, C.K. & Milstein, I. & Tishler, A. & Zarnikau, J., 2019. "A wholesale electricity market design sans missing money and price manipulation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    15. Würzburg, Klaas & Labandeira, Xavier & Linares, Pedro, 2013. "Renewable generation and electricity prices: Taking stock and new evidence for Germany and Austria," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(S1), pages 159-171.
    16. Browne, Oliver & Poletti, Stephen & Young, David, 2015. "How does market power affect the impact of large scale wind investment in 'energy only' wholesale electricity markets?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 17-27.
    17. Di Cosmo, Valeria & Malaguzzi Valeri, Laura, 2014. "The incentive to invest in thermal plants in the presence of wind generation," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 306-315.
    18. Ketterer, Janina C., 2014. "The impact of wind power generation on the electricity price in Germany," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 270-280.
    19. Levin, Todd & Botterud, Audun, 2015. "Electricity market design for generator revenue sufficiency with increased variable generation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 392-406.
    20. Brian Rivard and Adonis Yatchew, 2016. "Integration of Renewables into the Ontario Electricity System," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Bollino-M).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:39:y:2011:i:9:p:5099-5104. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.