This study provides economic models of the sustainability and affordability of renewable energy support schemes alongside operational advice on how the regulatory design may need to be modified to minimize the impact on the budget and be affordable to the poor, as well as how to identify and fill the financing gap.
The World Bank is providing assistance to the Government of China to help develop recommendations for changes to China's present system of financial incentives for commercial renewable energy development. This book reports on a Bank workshop that examined international experience with financial incentives for grid-connected wind power systems and off-grid photovoltaic systems in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, the United States (California), India, and China. The collective experiences of the countries were further examined to indicate other directions for developing financial incentives for market-based renewable energy development, as well as the underlying reasons for these tendencies.
Recently, there have been growing concerns about the availability and cost of energy and about environ. impacts of fossil energy use, especially global climate change. Those combined concerns have rekindled interest in energy efficiency, energy conservation, and the development and commercialization of renewable energy technologies. This report describes federal programs that provide grants, loans, loan guarantees, and other direct or indirect regulatory incentives for energy efficiency, energy conservation, and renewable energy. For each program, the report provides the administering agency, authorizing statute(s), annual funding, and the program expiration date. Charts and tables. This is a print on demand report.
Katrin Jordan-Korte presents the first comprehensive comparison of government promotion of renewable energy technologies in Germany, the United States, and Japan.
The United States and China are the world's top two energy consumers and, as of 2010, the two largest economies. Consequently, they have a decisive role to play in the world's clean energy future. Both countries are also motivated by related goals, namely diversified energy portfolios, job creation, energy security, and pollution reduction, making renewable energy development an important strategy with wide-ranging implications. Given the size of their energy markets, any substantial progress the two countries make in advancing use of renewable energy will provide global benefits, in terms of enhanced technological understanding, reduced costs through expanded deployment, and reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions relative to conventional generation from fossil fuels. Within this context, the U.S. National Academies, in collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), reviewed renewable energy development and deployment in the two countries, to highlight prospects for collaboration across the research to deployment chain and to suggest strategies which would promote more rapid and economical attainment of renewable energy goals. Main findings and concerning renewable resource assessments, technology development, environmental impacts, market infrastructure, among others, are presented. Specific recommendations have been limited to those judged to be most likely to accelerate the pace of deployment, increase cost-competitiveness, or shape the future market for renewable energy. The recommendations presented here are also pragmatic and achievable.