IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v38y2010i12p7698-7709.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Impact of public policy uncertainty on renewable energy investment: Wind power and the production tax credit

Author

Listed:
  • Barradale, Merrill Jones

Abstract

It is generally understood that the pattern of repeated expiration and short-term renewal of the federal production tax credit (PTC) causes a boom-bust cycle in wind power plant investment in the US. This on-off pattern is detrimental to the wind industry, since ramp-up and ramp-down costs are high, and players are deterred from making long-term investments. It is often assumed that the severe downturn in investment during "off" years implies that wind power is unviable without the PTC. This assumption turns out to be unsubstantiated: this paper demonstrates that it is not the absence of the PTC that causes the investment downturn during "off" years, but rather the uncertainty over its return. Specifically, it is the dynamic of power purchase agreement (PPA) negotiations in the face of PTC renewal uncertainty that drives investment volatility. With contract negotiations prevalent in the renewable energy industry, this finding suggests that reducing uncertainty is a crucial component of effective renewable energy policy. The PTC as currently structured is not the only means, existing or potential, for encouraging wind power investment. Using data from a survey of energy professionals, various policy instruments are compared in terms of their perceived stability for supporting long-term investment.

Suggested Citation

  • Barradale, Merrill Jones, 2010. "Impact of public policy uncertainty on renewable energy investment: Wind power and the production tax credit," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(12), pages 7698-7709, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:38:y:2010:i:12:p:7698-7709
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301-4215(10)00636-1
    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. Daniel Ellsberg, 2000. "Risk, Ambiguity and the Savage Axioms," Levine's Working Paper Archive 7605, David K. Levine.
    2. Agnolucci, Paolo, 2006. "Use of economic instruments in the German renewable electricity policy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(18), pages 3538-3548, December.
    3. Johnston, Angus & Kavali, Amalia & Neuhoff, Karsten, 2008. "Take-or-pay contracts for renewables deployment," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(7), pages 2481-2503, July.
    4. Wiser, Ryan H., 1997. "Renewable energy finance and project ownership : The impact of alternative development structures on the cost of wind power," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 15-27, January.
    5. Kahn, Edward, 1996. "The production tax credit for wind turbine powerplants is an ineffective incentive," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(5), pages 427-435, May.
    6. Daniel Ellsberg, 1961. "Risk, Ambiguity, and the Savage Axioms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 75(4), pages 643-669.
    7. Wiser, Ryan & Bolinger, Mark & Barbose, Galen, 2007. "Using the Federal Production Tax Credit to Build a Durable Market for Wind Power in the United States," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 20(9), pages 77-88, November.
    8. Meyer, Niels I. & Koefoed, Anne Louise, 2003. "Danish energy reform: policy implications for renewables," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(7), pages 597-607, June.
    9. Langniss, Ole & Wiser, Ryan, 2003. "The renewables portfolio standard in Texas: an early assessment," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 527-535, May.
    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. Ana Espinola-Arredondo & Felix Munoz-Garcia & Dolores Garrido, 2023. "Measuring regulatory errors from environmental policy uncertainty," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 64(1), pages 48-65, December.
    2. Espinola-Arredondo, Ana & Munoz-Garcia, Felix, 2021. "Abolishing Environmental Regulation: Strategic E§ects and Welfare Implications," Working Papers 2018-7, School of Economic Sciences, Washington State University.
    3. Leete, Simeon & Xu, Jingjing & Wheeler, David, 2013. "Investment barriers and incentives for marine renewable energy in the UK: An analysis of investor preferences," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 866-875.
    4. Anne Corcos & François Pannequin & Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde, 2012. "Aversions to Trust," Recherches économiques de Louvain, De Boeck Université, vol. 78(3), pages 115-134.
    5. Chorvat, Terrence, 2006. "Taxing utility," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 1-16, February.
    6. Ghirardato, Paolo & Marinacci, Massimo, 2002. "Ambiguity Made Precise: A Comparative Foundation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 102(2), pages 251-289, February.
    7. Hippolyte d’Albis & Emmanuel Thibault, 2018. "Ambiguous life expectancy and the demand for annuities," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 85(3), pages 303-319, October.
    8. Chambers, Christopher P. & Hayashi, Takashi, 2010. "Bayesian consistent belief selection," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(1), pages 432-439, January.
    9. Gajdos, T. & Hayashi, T. & Tallon, J.-M. & Vergnaud, J.-C., 2008. "Attitude toward imprecise information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 140(1), pages 27-65, May.
    10. Koszegi, Botond, 2003. "Health anxiety and patient behavior," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(6), pages 1073-1084, November.
    11. Diecidue, Enrico & Wakker, Peter P., 2002. "Dutch books: avoiding strategic and dynamic complications, and a comonotonic extension," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 135-149, March.
    12. Chateauneuf, A. & Grabisch, M. & Rico, A., 2008. "Modeling attitudes toward uncertainty through the use of the Sugeno integral," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(11), pages 1084-1099, December.
    13. Kast, Robert & Lapied, Andre, 2003. "Comonotonic book making and attitudes to uncertainty," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 1-7, August.
    14. Lee, Shun-Chung & Shih, Li-Hsing, 2010. "Renewable energy policy evaluation using real option model -- The case of Taiwan," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(Supplemen), pages 67-78, September.
    15. Aerts, Diederik & Broekaert, Jan & Czachor, Marek & D'Hooghe, Bart, 2011. "A Quantum-Conceptual Explanation of Violations of Expected Utility in Economics," MPRA Paper 41792, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Leitner, Johannes, 2005. "Dilatation monotonous Choquet integrals," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(8), pages 994-1006, December.
    17. Daniel Laskar, 2012. "Ambiguity and Coordination in a Global. Game Model of Financial Crises," PSE Working Papers halshs-00749500, HAL.
    18. Daniel Laskar, 2012. "Ambiguity and Coordination in a Global. Game Model of Financial Crises," Working Papers halshs-00749500, HAL.
    19. Bruno S. Frey & Matthias Benz, 2004. "From Imperialism to Inspiration: A Survey of Economics and Psychology," Chapters, in: John B. Davis & Alain Marciano & Jochen Runde (ed.), The Elgar Companion To Economics and Philosophy, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. Treich, Nicolas, 2010. "The value of a statistical life under ambiguity aversion," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 15-26, January.

    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:38:y:2010:i:12:p:7698-7709. 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.