The co-benefits of offshore wind under the UK Renewable Obligation scheme: Integrating sustainability in energy policy evaluation

Vahid Ghorbani Pashakolaie, Matthew Cotton and Malte Jansen

Energy Policy, 2024, vol. 192, issue C

Abstract: Offshore wind energy is a key technology for decarbonising the UK electricity system. It also delivers significant socio-environmental co-benefits. Assessing these co-benefits is essential for energy policy under turbulent energy market conditions emerging in the wake of geopolitical unrest. This study focuses on assessing the co-benefits and costs associated with offshore wind electricity generation for the Renewable Obligation scheme in the UK, which although being phased out, currently supports more offshore wind generation in 2023 than its Contracts-for-Difference replacement scheme. Comparing offshore wind co-benefits with support scheme costs provides an objective evaluation of the scheme's success. Results indicate that reduced energy imports contribute to co-benefits of £5.9 ± 0.3bn and £4.9 ± 0.3bn in simple and flexible scenarios respectively. Emissions reductions lead to £4.4 ± 0.9bn in simple and £3.9 ± 0.8bn in flexible scenario. The employment benefits amounted £1 ± 0.2bn. The cost of the Renewable Obligation scheme amounted to £18.8 ± 3.8bn, indicating that the co-benefits can cover 60% and 52% of the policy costs, in simple and flexible scenarios, respectively. This analysis supports a case for monetising the wider co-benefits of energy technology implementation to support institutions and policy makers in the integration and evaluation of sustainability in energy policy in a way that goes beyond the electricity price.

Keywords: Renewable obligation scheme; Co-benefits; Employment social benefit; Simple and flexible scenarios; Sustainable energy policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421524002799
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
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:eee:enepol:v:192:y:2024:i:c:s0301421524002799

DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2024.114259

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Policy is currently edited by N. France

More articles in Energy Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().