IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/qed/dpaper/4607.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Renewable Energy Support Through Feed-in Tariffs: A Retrospective Stakeholder Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Majid Hashemi

    (Department of Economics Queen’s University Canada)

  • Glenn P. Jenkins

    (Department of Economics, Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada and Cyprus International University, North Cyprus)

  • Frank Milne

    (Department of Economics, Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada)

Abstract

This study develops a generalized evaluation framework that can be used to quantify the financial, economic, stakeholder, and environmental impacts of renewable energy support programs. The application of this framework is demonstrated by evaluating the Feed-In Tariff (FIT) program for solar distributed energy resources (DER) in Ontario, Canada. Our analysis reveals that although Ontario’s FIT program has successfully promoted the adoption of solar DER across communities, considering all the criteria of cost-benefit analysis, including optimal timing, economic resource efficiency, environmental cost-effectiveness, and distributional impacts, this policy has been a complete failure. The program has led to a significant cross-subsidization from program non-participants to participants and losses to the Canadian economy in return for insignificant environmental benefits. The losses would have been reduced by approximately 50 percent if the program had been delayed and implemented in 2016 instead of 2010. The lessons from this analysis provide insights for designing future policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Suggested Citation

  • Majid Hashemi & Glenn P. Jenkins & Frank Milne, 2023. "Renewable Energy Support Through Feed-in Tariffs: A Retrospective Stakeholder Analysis," Development Discussion Papers 2023-08, JDI Executive Programs.
    • Handle: RePEc:qed:dpaper:4607
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://cri-world.com/publications/qed_dp_4607.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chun-Yan Kuo & Glenn Jenkins, 2007. "The Economic Opportunity Cost Of Capital For Canada - An Empirical Update," Working Paper 1133, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    2. Beck, Marisa & Rivers, Nicholas & Wigle, Randall, 2018. "How do learning externalities influence the evaluation of Ontario's renewables support policies?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 86-99.
    3. Bureau, Dominique & Quinet, Alain & Schubert, Katheline, 2021. "Benefit-Cost Analysis for Climate Action," Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(3), pages 494-517, October.
    4. Kevin Rennert & Frank Errickson & Brian C. Prest & Lisa Rennels & Richard G. Newell & William Pizer & Cora Kingdon & Jordan Wingenroth & Roger Cooke & Bryan Parthum & David Smith & Kevin Cromar & Dela, 2022. "Comprehensive evidence implies a higher social cost of CO2," Nature, Nature, vol. 610(7933), pages 687-692, October.
    5. Yatchew, Adonis & Baziliauskas, Andy, 2011. "Ontario feed-in-tariff programs," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(7), pages 3885-3893, July.
    6. Crago, Christine L. & Grazier, Emma & Breger, Dwayne, 2023. "Income and racial disparities in financial returns from solar PV deployment," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    7. Benjamin Dachis & Jan Carr, 2011. "Zapped: The High Cost of Ontario's Renewable Electricity Subsidies," e-briefs 117, C.D. Howe Institute.
    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. Hastings-Simon, Sara & Leach, Andrew & Shaffer, Blake & Weis, Tim, 2022. "Alberta's Renewable Electricity Program: Design, results, and lessons learned," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    2. Qian Zhou & Feng Gui & Benxuan Zhao & Jingyi Liu & Huiwen Cai & Kaida Xu & Sheng Zhao, 2024. "Examining the Social Costs of Carbon Emissions and the Ecosystem Service Value in Island Ecosystems: An Analysis of the Zhoushan Archipelago," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(2), pages 1-19, January.
    3. Alan C. O'Connor & Albert N. Link & Brandon M. Downs & Laura M. Hillier, 2015. "The impact of public investment in medical imaging technology: an interagency collaboration in evaluation," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(5), pages 510-531, July.
    4. Edouard Civel & Marc Baudry, 2018. "The Fate of Inventions. What can we learn from Bayesian learning in strategic options model of adoption ?," EconomiX Working Papers 2018-47, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    5. Gustav Resch & Malte Gephart & Simone Steinhilber & Corinna Klessmann & Pablo del Rio & Mario Ragwitz, 2013. "Coordination or Harmonisation? Feasible Pathways for a European Res Strategy beyond 2020," Energy & Environment, , vol. 24(1-2), pages 147-169, February.
    6. Hashemi, Majid & Jenkins, Glenn & Milne, Frank, 2023. "Rooftop solar with net metering: An integrated investment appraisal," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    7. Bougette, Patrice & Charlier, Christophe, 2015. "Renewable energy, subsidies, and the WTO: Where has the ‘green’ gone?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 407-416.
    8. Mabee, Warren E. & Mannion, Justine & Carpenter, Tom, 2012. "Comparing the feed-in tariff incentives for renewable electricity in Ontario and Germany," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 480-489.
    9. John Bistline & Geoffrey Blanford & Maxwell Brown & Dallas Burtraw & Maya Domeshek & Jamil Farbes & Allen Fawcett & Anne Hamilton & Jesse Jenkins & Ryan Jones & Ben King & Hannah Kolus & John Larsen &, 2023. "Emissions and Energy Impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act," Papers 2307.01443, arXiv.org.
    10. Antonelli, Marco & Desideri, Umberto, 2014. "The doping effect of Italian feed-in tariffs on the PV market," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 583-594.
    11. Aliyu, Abubakar Sadiq & Dada, Joseph O. & Adam, Ibrahim Khalil, 2015. "Current status and future prospects of renewable energy in Nigeria," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 336-346.
    12. Coppola, Andrea & Fernholz, Fernando & Glenday, Graham, 2014. "Estimating the economic opportunity cost of capital for public investment projects : an empirical analysis of the Mexican case," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6816, The World Bank.
    13. Ilea, Flavia-Maria & Cormos, Ana-Maria & Cristea, Vasile-Mircea & Cormos, Calin-Cristian, 2023. "Enhancing the post-combustion carbon dioxide carbon capture plant performance by setpoints optimization of the decentralized multi-loop and cascade control system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 275(C).
    14. del Río, Pablo, 2012. "The dynamic efficiency of feed-in tariffs: The impact of different design elements," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 139-151.
    15. Bahramian, Pejman & Jenkins, Glenn P. & Milne, Frank, 2021. "The displacement impacts of wind power electricity generation: Costly lessons from Ontario," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    16. Weiwei Xiong & Katsumasa Tanaka & Philippe Ciais & Daniel J. A. Johansson & Mariliis Lehtveer, 2022. "emIAM v1.0: an emulator for Integrated Assessment Models using marginal abatement cost curves," Papers 2212.12060, arXiv.org.
    17. Stephanie MacLeod & Yves Filion, 2012. "Issues and Implications of Carbon-Abatement Discounting and Pricing for Drinking Water System Design in Canada," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 26(1), pages 43-61, January.
    18. Tahseen, Samiha & Karney, Bryan, 2017. "Opportunities for increased hydropower diversion at Niagara: An sSWOT analysis," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 757-770.
    19. Lin, Boqiang & Jia, Zhijie, 2019. "How does tax system on energy industries affect energy demand, CO2 emissions, and economy in China?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    20. Chathurangi Edussuriya & Umar Marikkar & Subash Wickramasinghe & Upul Jayasinghe & Janaka Alawatugoda, 2023. "Peer-to-Peer Energy Trading through Swarm Intelligent Stackelberg Game," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-17, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    renewable energy subsidy; distributed energy resources; feed-in tariff; stakeholder analysis; benefit-cost analysis; Ontario; Canada.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O2 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy
    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • Q42 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Alternative Energy Sources
    • Q48 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Government Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:qed:dpaper:4607. 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: Mark Babcock (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/qedquca.html .

    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.