Environmental Engineering Reference
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electricity supply poses economic costs on a host nation both in terms of
inancing the electricity generation infrastructure and augmenting the
grid. he inancial demands of this can lead to nations making investment
decisions that are not optimal in the long run. China is a case in point.
Between 1980 and 2000, China invested heavily in coal-ired power in
order to capitalize on readily available technology and cheap domestic
reserves but now inds itself in a bind over how to inance a transition away
from this overdependence on coal-ired power.
he correlation between economic growth and electricity demand does
not necessarily mean that the fortunes of wind power development will be
undermined in nations plagued by low economic growth. his is because, in
nations where the electricity supply does not need to be expanded, installed
generation capacity still needs to be updated as older facilities become
obsolete. Moreover, if the grid does not need to be expanded in order to
accommodate new supply sources, government resources can be freed up
for subsidizing replacement of conventional energy by wind power systems.
hese mixed signals associated with economic growth patterns highlights
an important lesson for policymakers. In addition to emergent demand needs,
the evolving nature of a nation's electricity network is inluenced by the struc-
ture of the sector, the relative power of the players involved, the nature of past
and current subsidies, and the age of existing generating assets. Both high
and low economic growth conditions can engender conditions in support of
wind power expansion. he trick lies in cobbling together policy that best taps
into the emerging dynamics that impact the electricity sector.
10.5 INFLUENTIAL POLITICAL FACTORS
Political factors tend to frame the environment within which wind power
developers must compete. In the early days of wind power, without govern-
ment subsidies, there was little chance of substantive development due to
the adverse economic proile of wind power. As wind power costs continue
to fall and the costs of conventional energy generation increase a degree
of economic convergence is taking place; however, government subsidies
are still important. Nevertheless, politics has a much greater role to play
in enabling wind power development than merely closing the economic
divide. he research presented in this topic indicates that there are at least
nine political factors that inluence the efectiveness of wind power devel-
opment policy. In this section, each political factor will be introduced and
critically examined in order to identify policy lessons that are manifest in
these insights.
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