Analysis of world renewable energy policy and development

The development status of renewable energy

Since the development of renewable energy, it has occupied an important position in the world's energy consumption, and has been widely used in the fields of power generation, heating and transportation.

Data show that in 2011, renewable energy consumption accounted for 19% of global final energy consumption. Among them, traditional biomass energy accounted for 9.3%, modern renewable energy accounted for 9.7%, thermal energy utilization accounted for about 4.1%, hydropower accounted for about 3.7%, wind power, solar power, geothermal power, biomass power generation and other biofuels accounted for about 1.9%.

In 2012, the world's renewable power generation capacity exceeded 1.47 billion kilowatts, accounting for 26% of the world's total installed power generation capacity, and the share of electricity generation was more than 21%. Among them, the installed capacity of solar power generation grew strongly, and the installed capacity of photovoltaic power generation and solar thermal power generation reached 100 million kilowatts and 2.5 million kilowatts, respectively, an increase of 41% and 60%. The installed capacity of wind power maintained rapid growth, reaching 283 million kilowatts, an increase of 19%. The growth rate of hydropower and geothermal power installations slowed down, increasing by 3-4% year-on-year to 990 million kW and 11.7 million kW. In addition, global biopower installed capacity increased by 8% year-on-year to 83 GW.

In 2012, the world's top five countries with the most installed renewable energy generation were China, the United States, Brazil, Canada and Germany, while the "BRICS" accounted for 36% of global installed capacity. In terms of non-hydro renewables: China, the United States, Germany, Spain, Italy and India are at the top of the list, accounting for 69% of the global installed non-hydro renewable power generation capacity. The EU accounts for 44% of the world's installed renewable energy capacity and generates 20.6% of the region's electricity demand. The BRICS countries account for nearly 27% of the world's installed capacity.

Policy support for renewable energy

As an important part of the global energy system, in addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy provides an important driving force for the social, political and economic development of countries, and plays an important role in ensuring energy security, improving environmental protection and increasing employment in countries around the world. By the beginning of 2013, 127 countries had developed or introduced renewable energy policies, of which more than two-thirds were in developing countries and emerging economies.

Overall, renewable energy support policies cover various fields such as power generation, heating (cooling), transportation, and the vast majority of support policies are concentrated in the power generation industry. Power generation support policies mainly include on-grid tariff, renewable energy quota system, net metering tariff, fiscal and tax support policies and green power prices, among which on-grid tariff and quota system are the most widely used.

The feed-in tariff mechanism (FIT), that is, the government forces power grid enterprises to purchase renewable energy generation within the coverage of the grid within a certain period of time according to a certain price. Today, the feed-in tariff system is still the most widely adopted policy in the field of renewable energy generation in countries around the world. As of the beginning of 2013, including China, Germany, Spain, France and parts of the United States, 71 countries and 28 regions (states) in the world have implemented this system in their renewable energy power generation market, of which developing countries account for the majority, and the most common application in the EU countries.

The form of feed-in tariff usually includes fixed tariff and floating tariff. In the future, the implementation of two feed-in tariff forms in one country will be the main development trend of the renewable energy power generation market. For example, in 2012, the renewable energy electricity market in Germany, Spain, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and other countries implemented two pricing methods.

Due to the different development levels and stages of renewable energy in the world, countries continue to adjust and improve their own on-grid pricing and adjustment mechanisms according to their national conditions. As a result, the policies developed by countries have both commonalities and national differences.

Renewable energy quota system (RPS) refers to the mandatory provisions on the market share of renewable energy generation in the form of law, which is a mandatory means adopted by the government to cultivate the renewable energy market and make the renewable energy generation reach the minimum guarantee level. In general, the content of the quota system includes the scope of application and responsibility, renewable energy development goals, effective renewable energy types, green certificate system and reward and punishment measures. Different from the on-grid tariff, the quota system can better realize the full competition of renewable energy within the specified market share, so as to reasonably reflect the government's macro-control intention. By the end of 2012, more than 22 countries had implemented uniform nationwide quotas, and 54 states (provinces) had implemented intra-regional quotas. Countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy and Japan are typical countries that implement renewable energy quotas.

Fiscal and tax support policies are indispensable in promoting the development of renewable energy, and some countries provide funding for research and development of renewable energy technologies. For example, Australia provided US $3.4 million to support solar PV research and development projects; Japan provided US $19 million to establish a project to promote research and development of geothermal energy development technologies; However, due to the significant decline in the cost of renewable energy utilization and the continued impact of the international financial crisis, on the one hand, some countries have weakened their fiscal and tax policy support. For example, the Czech Republic plans to eliminate all renewable energy subsidies by 2014. On the other hand, some countries have begun to increase taxes on renewable energy technology and equipment. For example, in 2012, Bulgaria issued a temporary retroactive tax on solar, wind, hydro and biomass power generation projects.

Net Metering means that users with renewable energy power generation facilities can deduct part of their electricity bills according to the amount of electricity transported to the grid, that is, only calculate the net consumption of user electricity. The net metering tariff is generally used for small-scale power generation facilities at the user end, such as wind energy, solar photovoltaic, domestic fuel cells, etc. Today, 37 countries operate net metering tariff systems, including Canada and the United States, as well as Denmark, the United Kingdom and Italy. In 2012, Brazil, Chile and other countries began to implement net metering tariff policies.

Green Power price system (Green Power price system) in many countries in the world, the price formation mechanism is by the government to set the price of renewable energy products, including renewable energy electricity, heat and transportation fuel, etc. by consumers in accordance with the stipulated price of voluntary subscription. Among them, the United States, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands are typical countries that implement such a system. In addition to voluntary green purchases by consumers and enterprises, some governments also require utilities or power suppliers to force the use of green power products to support and promote the rapid development of large-scale applications of renewable energy in their countries.

The development trend of renewable energy

In the future, with the gradual increase in the proportion of renewable energy in the global energy consumption market, the strategic position is becoming more prominent, and the global energy supply system and consumption pattern will have a profound impact, and the future energy supply pattern will also be fundamentally changed.

Since 2012, with the improvement of global renewable energy technology, its equipment manufacturing costs have continued to decline. According to statistics, the global price of solar photovoltaic modules has fallen by more than 50%, and the price of onshore fans has fallen by 5%-10%. Therefore, the significant decline in production costs makes solar energy, wind energy and other renewable energy gradually have the cost advantage of competing with traditional fossil energy. In the long run, falling costs make renewable energy increasingly competitive.

In recent years, under the background of increasingly prominent global ecological and environmental problems, the development speed of the world's renewable energy has been accelerating, and the scale of the industry has continued to expand. The European Union, the International Energy Agency, the United States Energy Information Administration, the World Bank and other government departments and research institutions have raised the market share expectations for future renewable energy development. For example, the IEA World Energy Outlook (2012) predicts that by 2025, renewable energy generation will account for 31% of the global power generation market; The GEA Global Energy Assessment (2012) predicts that the share of renewable energy generation in the global power generation market will reach 62% by 2050.

In the future, the application of renewable energy support policies such as feed-in tariffs and quotas will be more extensive. In general, the feed-in tariff is applicable to the initial stage of renewable energy development, and the quota system is more applied to the mature stage of renewable energy development. The application of feed-in tariff is most obvious in the EU region, and there is a trend of gradual expansion; The quota system is mainly widely implemented in developed countries such as the United States and has achieved good results, and will be more and more widely used in the future.

In recent years, affected by the international financial crisis and sovereign debt crisis, while the progress of wind power and photovoltaic technology has also led to a significant reduction in power generation costs, some countries have begun to reduce the on-grid electricity price of renewable energy or reduce financial subsidies, support has weakened, while increasing the tax burden on renewable energy equipment and power generation. In general, in the future, under the influence of a series of uncertain factors such as the international economic situation, the shortage of traditional fossil energy and geopolitics, countries' policy support for renewable energy will be further differentiated.

The overall development practice of renewable energy in countries around the world shows that focusing on the establishment and formation of a wide variety of market mechanisms has become a consensus and an important driving force to promote the healthy development of renewable energy. At present, the high cost of renewable energy development requires policy support, so incentive policies such as feed-in tariff are designed, which is a distortion to the current electricity market. With the rapid reduction of development costs and continuous technological innovation, renewable energy will gradually reach the level of competition with conventional power supplies, and ultimately do not need policy support, to achieve their own healthy development. Therefore, the long-term development trend is to adopt more market-oriented incentive measures and policy design, so that renewable energy will gradually integrate into and rely on the power market, while innovating inclusive and complementary market mechanisms, coordinating the interests of renewable energy and conventional energy, and jointly ensuring long-term power supply security.