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ENERGY FINANCE

Learning in the financial sector is essential for reducing renewable energy costs

Nature Energy volume 4, pages 835–836 (2019)Cite this article

Subjects

Financing costs for renewable energy technologies have decreased substantially over the past 18 years, helping make renewables more cost competitive. Leveraging the effect of financial learning and continuing the policies that facilitated favourable financing conditions are key for greater renewable energy adoption in the future.

Messages for policy

  • The learning process in the renewable energy finance industry helps speed up the energy transition.

  • Renewable energy investment policies should aim at attracting a broad spectrum of investors in order to create competition that drives down financing cost.

  • State investment banks with a ‘green’ mandate prove useful to build investor confidence in new technologies.

  • Renewable energy deployment should be safeguarded against potential interest rate hikes, as these can disrupt financial learning and reverse cost reduction trends.

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Fig. 1: The impact of lower interest rates and financial learning on the cost of renewable energy.

References

Further Reading

  • Schmidt, T. S. et al. Adverse effects of rising interest rates on sustainable energy transitions. Nat. Sustain. 2, 879–885 (2019). Quantifies how general interest rate increases would affect the viability of renewable versus fossil-fuel electricity and proposes a safeguarding policy strategy.

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  • Noothout, P. et al. The Impact of Risks in Renewable Energy Investments and the Role of Smart Policies Final Report (DiaCore, 2016). Offers a comprehensive collection of the cost of capital data for wind onshore projects in the European Union (26 countries) combining model results with expert interviews.

  • Geddes, A., Schmidt, T. S. & Steffen, B. The multiple roles of state investment banks in low-carbon energy finance: an analysis of Australia, the UK and Germany. Energy Policy 115, 158–170 (2018).Draws on 52 interviews and focuses on three state investment banks to distill five roles these banks take to accelerate financial sector learning.

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  • Polzin, F., Egli, F., Steffen, B. & Schmidt, T. S. How do policies mobilize private finance for renewable energy?—A systematic review with an investor perspective. Appl. Energy 236, 1249–1268 (2019).Offers a comprehensive overview of the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of renewable energy policies in attracting investment with a deep dive into the design of auctions, feed-in tariffs and renewable portfolio standards.

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  • Steffen, B. The importance of project finance for renewable energy projects. Energy Econ. 69, 280–294 (2018).Shows that renewable energy projects heavily rely on non-recourse project finance, including in low-risk countries like Germany, using a financial structure that allows a broad set of (non-utility) sponsors to invest in renewable energy.

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Acknowledgements

The original work was supported by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) under contract no. 16.0222. The opinions expressed and arguments employed herein do not necessarily reflect the official views of the Swiss Government. This work was conducted as part of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme project INNOPATHS under grant agreement no. 730403.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Energy Politics Group, Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Florian Egli, Bjarne Steffen & Tobias S. Schmidt

Authors
  1. Florian Egli
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  2. Bjarne Steffen
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  3. Tobias S. Schmidt
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Florian Egli, Bjarne Steffen or Tobias S. Schmidt.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Egli, F., Steffen, B. & Schmidt, T.S. Learning in the financial sector is essential for reducing renewable energy costs. Nat Energy 4, 835–836 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-019-0482-3

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