Innovation policy for directing technical change in the power sector

Rob Aalbers, Victoria Shestalova and Viktoria Kocsis

No 223, CPB Discussion Paper from CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis

Abstract: This paper discusses policy instruments for redirecting technical change within the electricity sector to mitigate climate change. First, we unravel the mechanism behind directed technical change, explaining why markets may underprovide innovations in expensive renewable technologies in comparison to innovations in energy-efficient fossil-fuel generators. Subsequently, we characterize technical change in electricity generation technologies, stressing the heterogeneity of knowledge spillovers both within and between clean electricity generation technologies. We argue that there exists a rationale for a portfolio approach to innovation in the electricity sector, i.e., optimal innovation policies are neither fully generic nor fully specific; and they need to be adapted, in response to new information learned by the government. The existing innovation literature does not, however, provide a clear-cut answer for designing such a policy. We compare policy instruments and argue that public R&D support to clean technologies, either in the form of subsidies or prizes, seems to be the prime candidate for implementing non-generic innovation policy.

JEL-codes: O33 O38 Q48 Q55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-ene, nep-ino and nep-reg
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cpb.nl/sites/default/files/publicaties ... nge-power-sector.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Innovation policy for directing technical change in the power sector (2013)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpb:discus:223

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CPB Discussion Paper from CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().