Ruben Laleman
Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business administration, Ghent, Belgium
Johan Albrecht
Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business administration, Ghent, Belgium
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http://dx.doi.org/10.3384/ecp110572706Published in: World Renewable Energy Congress - Sweden; 8-13 May; 2011; Linköping; Sweden
Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings 57:2, p. 2706-2713
Published: 2011-11-03
ISBN: 978-91-7393-070-3
ISSN: 1650-3686 (print), 1650-3740 (online)
Successful technological innovation frameworks are based on synergistic packages of technologypush and demand-pull measures. As the massive deployment of premature renewable energy technologies risks becoming very expensive; the debate on the optimal trajectory of renewable technologies should explicitly consider the balance between deployment incentives and R&D efforts.
This paper explores this balance regarding wind and PV technology support in Europe. Based on rather conservative estimates; we calculate future deployment costs and compare these figures to the current public investments in PV and wind R&D. We find that; today; for each Euro spent on R&D to develop future technologies; 35 to 41 Euros are spent on the deployment of existing technologies. Furthermore; private PV and wind technology companies tend to underinvest in R&D for various reasons. In an alternative scenario; we assess the optimal R&D efforts for the PV and wind sectors based on a 7% R&D-to-sales benchmark that is typical for engineering sectors. If public R&D efforts would increase according to this benchmark; and hence compensate for the private underinvestments in R&D; pull/push ratios between 6 and 8 could be achieved. This leads us to conclude that the current balance between deployment and R&D is far from optimal.
Wind energy; PV-systems; Energy policy; Research and Development; Deployment subsidies
