On 25 of October Ronald Huisman, associate professor of Erasmus School of Economics, with the assistance of International I. Lundin Energy Center gave the conference «Liberalization and sustainability: a decade of liberalized energy markets in Europe» in the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

 In order to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases and to secure future energy supplies, governments around the world are working to stimulate the deployment of renewable energy sources. The recent financial crisis has affected the economic environment worldwide and has influenced renewable energy policies at the same time. This financial crisis has forced several European governments using feed-in tariffs to cut their subsidies. Such developments are likely to influence investor preferences regarding renewable energy and climate policies. The first result is that feed-in tariffs remain the most popular policy among clean tech venture capital and private equity investors. When comparing the 2007 and 2011 results, we observe that most of the policies decreased in popularity. The most noteworthy and significant decrease was found in trade based mechanisms, green quotas and certificate trading as well as CO2 emissions trading. European focused investors, however, showed a decrease in popularity for most of the policies. Based on the recent subsidy cuts as a result of the financial crisis, one might think that feed-in tariffs are no longer the best renewable energy and climate policy to increase private equity investments in renewable energy. Even though the recent financial crisis and subsidy cuts in several European countries have influenced the popularity of several renewable energy policies, feed-in tariffs are still the most popular renewable energy and climate policy among cleantech venture capital and private equity investors as they provide the most stable incentives for investors.

Original text:

http://fsinsight.org/docs/download/hofman-huisman-renewable-energy.pdf