IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v204y2025ics0301421525001909.html

Renewable energy investment under the market-oriented transition of policies

Author

Listed:
  • Zhang, Mingming
  • Guo, Qianxi
  • Liu, Liyun
  • Zhou, Dequn

Abstract

This study develops a renewable energy marketization transition index to assess the policy shift toward market-oriented mechanisms across 30 Chinese provinces (2011–2021), leveraging keyword-based analysis of 2489 policy texts. Then, it explores the influence of the market-oriented transition of renewable energy policies (MTREP) on renewable energy investment by using multiple econometric models. The analysis reveals that MTREP implementation significantly suppresses renewable energy investment overall, though with important nuances. The observed inhibition stems primarily from subsidy withdrawal, while market-oriented trading mechanisms show no statistically significant negative impact. This dampening effect exhibits distinct spatial and technological heterogeneity: it is concentrated in regions with low electricity demand, and while MTREP curtails wind power investment in resource-scarce areas, it conversely stimulates solar PV development. At a high level of renewable energy development, the inhibition effect of MTREP decreased. Geographically, the benefits of marketization become increasingly concentrated in eastern and central China, along with Xinjiang province. Temporally, the policy impact evolves through three distinct phases - an initial stimulative effect gives way to investment suppression before reaching a period where both effects coexist.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhang, Mingming & Guo, Qianxi & Liu, Liyun & Zhou, Dequn, 2025. "Renewable energy investment under the market-oriented transition of policies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:204:y:2025:i:c:s0301421525001909
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2025.114683
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421525001909
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2025.114683?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

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wang, Guotao & Liao, Qi & Li, Zhengbing & Zhang, Haoran & Liang, Yongtu & Wei, Xuemei, 2022. "How does soaring natural gas prices impact renewable energy: A case study in China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 252(C).
    2. Iimura, Akiko & Cross, Jeffrey S., 2018. "The impact of renewable energy on household electricity prices in liberalized electricity markets: A cross-national panel data analysis," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 96-106.
    3. Frondel, Manuel & Ritter, Nolan & Schmidt, Christoph M. & Vance, Colin, 2010. "Economic impacts from the promotion of renewable energy technologies: The German experience," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 4048-4056, August.
    4. Huang, Ping & Negro, Simona O. & Hekkert, Marko P. & Bi, Kexin, 2016. "How China became a leader in solar PV: An innovation system analysis," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 777-789.
    5. Alolo, Mutaka & Azevedo, Alcino & El Kalak, Izidin, 2020. "The effect of the feed-in-system policy on renewable energy investments: Evidence from the EU countries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    6. Volodymyr Babich & Ruben Lobel & Şafak Yücel, 2020. "Promoting Solar Panel Investments: Feed-in-Tariff vs. Tax-Rebate Policies," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 22(6), pages 1148-1164, November.
    7. Ritzenhofen, Ingmar & Spinler, Stefan, 2016. "Optimal design of feed-in-tariffs to stimulate renewable energy investments under regulatory uncertainty — A real options analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 76-89.
    8. Nicholas Apergis & James E. Payne, 2014. "The causal dynamics between renewable energy, real GDP, emissions and oil prices: evidence from OECD countries," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(36), pages 4519-4525, December.
    9. Yao, Xilong & Liu, Yang & Qu, Shiyou, 2015. "When will wind energy achieve grid parity in China? – Connecting technological learning and climate finance," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 697-704.
    10. Ji, Qiang & Zhang, Dayong, 2019. "How much does financial development contribute to renewable energy growth and upgrading of energy structure in China?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 114-124.
    11. Ouyang, Xiaoling & Lin, Boqiang, 2014. "Levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) of renewable energies and required subsidies in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 64-73.
    12. Wang, Hongye & Su, Bin & Mu, Hailin & Li, Nan & Gui, Shusen & Duan, Ye & Jiang, Bo & Kong, Xue, 2020. "Optimal way to achieve renewable portfolio standard policy goals from the electricity generation, transmission, and trading perspectives in southern China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    13. Zhu, Lei & Li, Li & Su, Bin, 2021. "The price-bidding strategy for investors in a renewable auction: An option games–based study," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    14. Hu, Xing & Yu, Shiwei & Fang, Xu & Ovaere, Marten, 2023. "Which combinations of renewable energy policies work better? Insights from policy text synergies in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(PA).
    15. Zhang, Mingming & Tang, Yamei & Liu, Liyun & Zhou, Dequn, 2022. "Optimal investment portfolio strategies for power enterprises under multi-policy scenarios of renewable energy," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    16. Kim, Jeayoon & Park, Kwangwoo, 2018. "Effect of the Clean Development Mechanism on the deployment of renewable energy: Less developed vs. well-developed financial markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 1-13.
    17. Zhang, Libo & Chen, Changqi & Wang, Qunwei & Zhou, Dequn, 2021. "The impact of feed-in tariff reduction and renewable portfolio standard on the development of distributed photovoltaic generation in China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 232(C).
    18. Jia, Zhijie & Lin, Boqiang & Wen, Shiyan, 2022. "Electricity market Reform: The perspective of price regulation and carbon neutrality," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 328(C).
    19. Tu, Qiang & Mo, Jianlei & Betz, Regina & Cui, Lianbiao & Fan, Ying & Liu, Yu, 2020. "Achieving grid parity of solar PV power in China- The role of Tradable Green Certificate," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    20. Ma, Rufei & Cai, Huan & Ji, Qiang & Zhai, Pengxiang, 2021. "The impact of feed-in tariff degression on R&D investment in renewable energy: The case of the solar PV industry," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    21. He, Gang & Kammen, Daniel M., 2016. "Where, when and how much solar is available? A provincial-scale solar resource assessment for China," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 74-82.
    22. Wakiyama, Takako & Zusman, Eric, 2021. "The impact of electricity market reform and subnational climate policy on carbon dioxide emissions across the United States: A path analysis," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    23. Chu, Ling & Takeuchi, Kenji, 2022. "The non-operating solar projects: Examining the impact of the feed-in tariff amendment in Japan," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    24. Finjord, Fredrik & Hagspiel, Verena & Lavrutich, Maria & Tangen, Marius, 2018. "The impact of Norwegian-Swedish green certificate scheme on investment behavior: A wind energy case study," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 373-389.
    25. Helgesen, Per Ivar & Tomasgard, Asgeir, 2018. "An equilibrium market power model for power markets and tradable green certificates, including Kirchhoff's Laws and Nash-Cournot competition," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 270-288.
    26. Sadorsky, Perry, 2009. "Renewable energy consumption, CO2 emissions and oil prices in the G7 countries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 456-462, May.
    27. Zhang, Qi & Wang, Ge & Li, Yan & Li, Hailong & McLellan, Benjamin & Chen, Siyuan, 2018. "Substitution effect of renewable portfolio standards and renewable energy certificate trading for feed-in tariff," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 227(C), pages 426-435.
    28. Liu, Da & Liu, Yumeng & Sun, Kun, 2021. "Policy impact of cancellation of wind and photovoltaic subsidy on power generation companies in China," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 134-147.
    29. Naifar, Nader, 2025. "Interactions between renewable energy tokens, oil shocks, and clean energy investments: Do COP26 policies matter?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    30. Cao, Hong & Guo, Litian & Zhang, Lin, 2020. "Does oil price uncertainty affect renewable energy firms’ investment? Evidence from listed firms in China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 33(C).
    31. Yu, Shiwei & Zhou, Shuangshuang & Dai, Yao & Zhang, Junjie, 2023. "Impacts of RPS and FIT on inter-regional power transmission line layout in China: Considerations of high renewable energy penetration," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    32. Xia, Fang & Lu, Xi & Song, Feng, 2020. "The role of feed-in tariff in the curtailment of wind power in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    33. Zhang, Alex Hongliang & Sirin, Selahattin Murat & Fan, Conglai & Bu, Maoliang, 2022. "An analysis of the factors driving utility-scale solar PV investments in China: How effective was the feed-in tariff policy?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    34. Tolmasquim, Maurício T. & de Barros Correia, Tiago & Addas Porto, Natália & Kruger, Wikus, 2021. "Electricity market design and renewable energy auctions: The case of Brazil," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    35. Dong, Changgui & Zhou, Runmin & Li, Jiaying, 2021. "Rushing for subsidies: The impact of feed-in tariffs on solar photovoltaic capacity development in China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 281(C).
    36. Xu, Xiaomin & Niu, Dongxiao & Xiao, Bowen & Guo, Xiaodan & Zhang, Lihui & Wang, Keke, 2020. "Policy analysis for grid parity of wind power generation in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    37. Michaël Aklin & Johannes Urpelainen, 2013. "Political Competition, Path Dependence, and the Strategy of Sustainable Energy Transitions," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 57(3), pages 643-658, July.
    38. Zhang, Mingming & Liu, Liyun & Wang, Qunwei & Zhou, Dequn, 2020. "Valuing investment decisions of renewable energy projects considering changing volatility," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    39. Yu, Feifei & Guo, Yue & Le-Nguyen, Khuong & Barnes, Stuart J. & Zhang, Weiting, 2016. "The impact of government subsidies and enterprises’ R&D investment: A panel data study from renewable energy in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 106-113.
    40. Song, Yazhi & Liu, Tiansen & Ye, Bin & Li, Yin, 2020. "Linking carbon market and electricity market for promoting the grid parity of photovoltaic electricity in China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 211(C).
    41. Zhang, M.M. & Zhang, C. & Liu, L.Y. & Zhou, D.Q., 2020. "Is it time to launch grid parity in the Chinese solar photovoltaic industry? Evidence from 335 cities," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    42. Zhang, Tao & Li, Hong-Zhou & Xie, Bai-Chen, 2022. "Have renewables and market-oriented reforms constrained the technical efficiency improvement of China's electric grid utilities?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    43. Saint Akadiri, Seyi & Alola, Andrew Adewale & Akadiri, Ada Chigozie & Alola, Uju Violet, 2019. "Renewable energy consumption in EU-28 countries: Policy toward pollution mitigation and economic sustainability," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 803-810.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Stanislav Boldyryev & Oleksandr S. Ivashchuk & Goran Krajačić & Volodymyr M. Atamanyuk, 2025. "Review of Challenges in Heat Exchanger Network Development for Electrified Industrial Energy Systems," Energies, MDPI, vol. 18(14), pages 1-34, July.
    2. Baiardi, Donatella & Cristofoletti, Enrico & Menegatti, Mario, 2025. "It only works if you believe in it: How climate change awareness affects the effectiveness of energy initiatives," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    3. Zhao, Zhenyu & Xu, Hanting & Bao, Geriletu, 2025. "Two-stage clustering-focusing measurement modeling for national new energy market development level: An empirical analysis of 81 economies," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 340(C).

    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. Wang, Rong & Hasanefendic, Sandra & Bossink, Bart, 2025. "A review of grid parity assessment for solar photovoltaics," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
    2. Zhou, Dequn & Dong, Zhuojia & Sang, Xiuzhi & Wang, Qunwei & Yu, Xianyu, 2023. "Do feed-in tariff reduction and green certificate trading effectively promote regional sustainable development？," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 283(C).
    3. Zhang, Alex Hongliang & Sirin, Selahattin Murat & Fan, Conglai & Bu, Maoliang, 2022. "An analysis of the factors driving utility-scale solar PV investments in China: How effective was the feed-in tariff policy?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    4. 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).
    5. Xiaohua Song & Yamin Huang & Yulin Zhang & Wen Zhang & Zeqi Ge, 2023. "An Appraisal on China’s Feed-In Tariff Policies for PV and Wind Power: Implementation Effects and Optimization," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-23, March.
    6. Bangjun, Wang & Feng, Zhaolei & Feng, Ji & Yu, Pan & Cui, Linyu, 2022. "Decision making on investments in photovoltaic power generation projects based on renewable portfolio standard: Perspective of real option," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 1033-1045.
    7. Liu, Da & Jiang, Yan & Peng, Chuan & Jian, Jianhui & Zheng, Jing, 2024. "Can green certificates substitute for renewable electricity subsidies? A Chinese experience," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 222(C).
    8. Wang, Chizhong & Chen, Heng & Wang, Zhengwei & Gao, Yue & Zhang, Guoqiang, 2025. "Economic assessment and grid parity analysis of photovoltaic power generation considering tradable green certificate," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 382(C).
    9. Yang, Tianjian & Qian, Peng & Lei, Tianyi, 2025. "Does ease of doing business promote renewable energy development? Evidence from 162 economies," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    10. Lin, Boqiang & Xie, Yongjing, 2024. "How feed-in-tariff subsidies affect renewable energy investments in China? New evidence from firm-level data," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 294(C).
    11. Luo, Yi-Lang & Li, Wen-Bo & Chen, Xuesheng, 2025. "Dynamic relationship between stock markets and renewable energy development: Evidence from cross-country data," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 1262-1274.
    12. Àlex Alonso-Travesset & Diederik Coppitters & Helena Martín & Jordi de la Hoz, 2023. "Economic and Regulatory Uncertainty in Renewable Energy System Design: A Review," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(2), pages 1-30, January.
    13. Rong Wang & Sandra Hasanefendic & Elizabeth Von Hauff & Bart Bossink, 2023. "A System Dynamics Approach to Technological Learning Impact for the Cost Estimation of Solar Photovoltaics," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(24), pages 1-17, December.
    14. Wang, Rong & Hasanefendic, Sandra & Von Hauff, Elizabeth & Bossink, Bart, 2022. "The cost of photovoltaics: Re-evaluating grid parity for PV systems in China," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 469-481.
    15. Wu, Jiaqian & Chen, Yu & Yu, Lean & Li, Guohao & Li, Jingjing, 2023. "Has the evolution of renewable energy policies facilitated the construction of a new power system for China? A system dynamics analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    16. Azhgaliyeva, Dina & Le, Hai & Olivares, Resi Ong & Tian, Shu, 2024. "Renewable energy investments and feed-in tariffs: Firm-level evidence from Southeast Asia11An earlier version of the paper was presented at CUE2023," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 374(C).
    17. Zeng, Lijun & Wang, Jiafeng & Zhao, Laijun, 2022. "An inter-provincial tradable green certificate futures trading model under renewable portfolio standard policy," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 257(C).
    18. Yang, Changhui & Jiang, Qi & Cui, Yangyu & He, Lijun, 2023. "Photovoltaic project investment based on the real options method: An analysis of the East China power grid region," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    19. Zeng, Lijun & Du, Wenjing & Hong, Weichen, 2025. "An inter-provincial renewable electricity trading model under renewable portfolio standards policy," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 319(C).
    20. Yi, Yuxin & Zhang, Liming & Du, Lei & Sun, Helin, 2024. "Cross-regional integration of renewable energy and corporate carbon emissions: Evidence from China's cross-regional surplus renewable energy spot trading pilot," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:eee:enepol:v:204:y:2025:i:c:s0301421525001909. 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.