IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natene/v6y2021i2d10.1038_s41560-020-00745-x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The cost of debt of renewable and non-renewable energy firms

Author

Listed:
  • Karol Kempa

    (Frankfurt School of Finance and Management)

  • Ulf Moslener

    (Frankfurt School of Finance and Management)

  • Oliver Schenker

    (Frankfurt School of Finance and Management)

Abstract

The risks imminent to younger technologies and markets may hinder renewable energy firms’ access to financing. This could curtail the investment needed for the transformation of the global energy sector. However, comprehensive analyses of the cost of debt of renewable and non-renewable energy firms are lacking. Here, we empirically analyse the differences between the costs of debt of firms developing and producing renewable energy technologies and of non-renewable energy firms. We use global micro-level data on individual loans matched to firm-level data. The results suggest that renewable energy firms might face a higher cost of debt initially, when technologies and markets are young and immature. However, a cost advantage of renewable energy firms emerges over time. The results also show that the costs of debt of renewable energy firms are lower in economies with a more developed banking sector and comparatively stringent environmental policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Karol Kempa & Ulf Moslener & Oliver Schenker, 2021. "The cost of debt of renewable and non-renewable energy firms," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 6(2), pages 135-142, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natene:v:6:y:2021:i:2:d:10.1038_s41560-020-00745-x
    DOI: 10.1038/s41560-020-00745-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-00745-x
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41560-020-00745-x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

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

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pata, Ugur Korkut & Yilanci, Veli & Zhang, Qianxiao & Shah, Syed Ale Raza, 2022. "Does financial development promote renewable energy consumption in the USA? Evidence from the Fourier-wavelet quantile causality test," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 432-443.
    2. Glenk, Gunther & Reichelstein, Stefan, 2021. "Intermittent versus dispatchable power sources: An integrated competitive assessment," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-065, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    3. -, 2023. "Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean 2023," La Inversión Extranjera Directa en América Latina y el Caribe, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), number 48979 edited by Eclac, September.
    4. Glenk, Gunther & Reichelstein, Stefan, 2022. "The economic dynamics of competing power generation sources," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    5. Emanuele Campiglio & Alessandro Spiganti & Anthony Wiskich, 2023. "Clean innovation and heterogeneous financing costs," Working Papers 2023: 07, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    6. Tian Zhao & Zhixin Liu, 2022. "Drivers of CO 2 Emissions: A Debt Perspective," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(3), pages 1-18, February.
    7. Domenico Morrone & Rosamartina Schena & Danilo Conte & Candida Bussoli & Angeloantonio Russo, 2022. "Between saying and doing, in the end there is the cost of capital: Evidence from the energy sector," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 390-402, January.
    8. Skare, Marinko & Gavurova, Beata & Sinkovic, Dean, 2023. "Regional aspects of financial development and renewable energy: A cross-sectional study in 214 countries," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 1142-1157.
    9. Farrell, Niall, 2023. "Policy design for green hydrogen," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    10. Wang, Qiang & Zhang, Chen & Li, Rongrong, 2022. "Towards carbon neutrality by improving carbon efficiency - A system-GMM dynamic panel analysis for 131 countries’ carbon efficiency," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 258(C).
    11. Guo, Wen & Yang, Bo & Ji, Jiong & Liu, Xiaorui, 2023. "Green finance development drives renewable energy development: Mechanism analysis and empirical research," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 215(C).
    12. Yue Meng & Haoyue Wu & Wenjing Zhao & Wenkuan Chen & Hasan Dinçer & Serhat Yüksel, 2021. "A hybrid heterogeneous Pythagorean fuzzy group decision modelling for crowdfunding development process pathways of fintech-based clean energy investment projects," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 7(1), pages 1-34, December.
    13. Blazquez, Jorge & Galeotti, Marzio & Martin-Moreno, Jose M., 2021. "Green recovery packages for a post-Covid-19 world: A lesson from the collapse of Spanish wind farms in the past financial crisis," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    14. Thomas Cauthorn & Christian Klein & Leonard Remme & Bernhard Zwergel, 2023. "Portfolio benefits of taxonomy orientated and renewable European electric utilities," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 24(7), pages 558-571, December.
    15. Christian Haas & Karol Kempa, 2023. "Low-Carbon Investment and Credit Rationing," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 86(1), pages 109-145, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:nat:natene:v:6:y:2021:i:2:d:10.1038_s41560-020-00745-x. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    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.