Title: Best practice policies to develop Renewable Heat markets
1Best practice policies to develop Renewable Heat
markets
- Herbert Tretter (E.V.A.)
- Christian Rakos (SWS)
2Current status of RES heat in EU-15
Source The share of renewable energy in the EU
SEC(2004) 547
3Contribution of the member states
Source The share of renewable energy in the EU
SEC(2004) 547
4What we need until 2010
Source COM(2004) 366 final evaluation of the
contribution of renewable energy sources in the
EU
5Key findings
- Policies make a difference !
- many isolated success stories exist
- E.g. Solar Greece, heat pumps Sweden, Pellets
Austria etc. - Markets alone cannot do the job !
6What makes policies successful ?
- Comprehensive approach (programs rather than
measures) - Continuity !
- Regional outreach
- Reasonable financial commitment
7Why a comprehensive approach?
- Energy technologies are embedded in society
- Vast numbers of actors involved
- Highly complex relationships to be addressed
- Missing links lead to failure
- Key role of program management!
8The need for continuity
- Markets need time to grow
- Especially energy markets !
- E.g. Plan Soleil 6-7y, Biomass Austria20y
- Stop go policies can ruin RES industries
- Continuity makes them flourish
9Regional approach
- projects happen at the regional level
- coordination of actors is much easier at this
level - information, funding, skills etc. are necessary
at the regional level - successful program managers often active at the
regional level (Swedish Finnish energy
advisiers, Plan Soleil, Austrian DH..)
10Reasonable financial support
- Annual Subsidies for fossil fuels in the EU15 24
G - Subsidies for RES in the EU 5 G
- LEVEL PLAYING FIELD ??
- Necessity for financial support of RES H
- at the program level (few 100 M over 7 years)
- to support investments (NOT running costs!) (3 G
over 7 years investment subsity (1 k per unit,
1600.000 units per year after 7 years, starting
from 50.000)
11Issues comprehensive RES H policies programs
must address
- Establishment of program management
- Quality of products and services
- Information promotion
- Economic incentives
- Regulation
- RD
12The need for program management
- Why? Complexity of task, systems approach
necessary - Who? Sometimes industry associations (e.g. Greek
Solar, Finish Heat pumps) - Typically independent managers established by
public initiative - Can be best value for money (NL landfill gas)
- Often established at regional level
- Usually indispensable, needs sufficient funding
13Quality of products and services
- The most basic issue for success
- Public initiative indispensable
- Testing certification of products
- Education, training certification of service
providers - Monitoring of realized systems incl. feedback
14Harmonisation of quality requirements a future
need
- Necessary to establish a European market for high
quality RES technologies - Harmonised strict requirements for products
- Harmonised requirements for skilled
servicesEuropean Solar Energy Drivers Licence
(similar for heat pumps, biomass etc.)
15Information and promotion
- Chicken egg problem RES heat industries too
small to finance full scale marketing so they
stay small - Exception cooperation of competitors (Greece,
Finland) - Public financing for full scale marketing
- Present funding levels absolutely inadequate
16Economic incentives
- Not one success story without them
- Subsidies, tax cuts or energy taxes can all be
successful - Dilemma continuity of incentive vs market growth
- Solutions
- predictable stepwise reduction of subsidies as
market grows - Conditions on existing subsidies (e.g. A RES
obligations for construction subsidy, RES
obligations connected to subsidies for fossil
fuels ?!) - tax cuts instead of subsidies
17Smart subsidies
- easily accessible
- quickly available
- well communicated
- reliable
- support RES combination with energy savings
- performance based
- predictably declining
18Regulation
- E.g. Spanish local building regulations for solar
thermal - Low impact on state budget
- Can be effective BUT market must be ready to
deliver
19RD
- Is not going to be key driver for RES heat
- Technologies ready for market
- Much RD is still needed, but not academic
research ! - Industry driven research
- systems efficiency
- simplicity
- durability
- materials etc.
20Conclusions
- Investigated cases show that adequate policies
can lead to full scale market introduction - However, adequate policies for RES heat seem to
be the exception still - Consequently RES H development is presently
restricted to few hot spots in Europe - An EU policy to call member states attention
towards the opportunities in the RES H market is
necessary ( RES H directive) - The EU could launch a full scale program
supporting member states to develop RES H markets