Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Notice in column 2, the actual, i.e., historical costs, and in column 3 the simu-
lated costs resulting from the optimal allocation of photovoltaics production among
the EU 27 members, which minimizes the total EU cost.
Our estimates show an important result: overall, this allocation would save al-
most 4 % of total EU cost. Of course, for some EU countries, there is a net saving
and for others there is an increase in cost. For instance, Austria, Germany, Ireland,
and the UK would pay less, while Belgium, Italy, and Spain would have to pay
more. The reason is that countries with lower prices should produce more and vice
versa. However, the overall EU cost is clearly lower.
The savings we get through our model, i.e., 4 % of total costs to reach 20 %
RES target by 2020, is a significant number because it can positively influence
the behavior of those who are involved in the politics of financial support to RES
that are households. Indeed, acknowledging that RES goal imposes extra costs on
households, several studies have investigated the relation between RES support
policies and consumers' willingness to pay. Results show that a reduction of RES
cost increases the share of favorable households, in the order of several percentage
points (Bollino
2009
; Scarpa and Willis
2010
; Bigerna and Polinori
2014
). Thus, we
can infer that a reduction of the RES costs production can lead more likely to an in-
crease in the political favor of households, i.e., those who ultimately vote consensus
for RES development policies.
This result is really crucial in making possible to test the true spirit of coopera-
tion among EU members. It is conceivable that there could be requests of compen-
sations. Countries with higher costs would try to reduce their allocation but this will
increase the cost for the whole EU. So they can try to negotiate some compensation.
Finally, it would be important in the future outlook to 2030 to take greater ac-
count of both infrastructural aspects and those related to research and development
activities. Issues on which the Communication
2014
(0015) skates over. Instead,
now it should be encouraged investments in those forms of flexibility (smart grid,
demand management, storage tanks, and balancing services and flexibility), useful
to integrate effectively RES into the system and in the electricity markets developed
in the last decade in the EU. Even more, it is needed to focus European efforts to
push in the direction of research and development activities for RES deployment.
It is only in this way that it will be possible for the EU to arrive at one or more
technological breakthroughs (perhaps as part of the storage and smart grids) which,
similarly to what happened with the extraction techniques in shale gas in the USA,
are able to making RES an element of competitiveness in the energy markets.
5.5
Concluding Remarks
Climate change has become the main pillar of EU policies aimed at accelerating
the transition towards sustainable development, a future with low-emission GHG.
In this topic, we propose an economic analysis of the current situation of RES with
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