Policy relevant lessons from research on renewable energy auctions

Vasilios Anatolitis, Pablo del Río, Lena Kitzing, Oscar Fitch-Roy and László Szabó

Energy Policy, 2025, vol. 203, issue C

Abstract: Renewable energy auctions have emerged globally as a primary tool for promoting electricity from renewable energy sources (RES-E) by awarding operational support to projects that bid the lowest level of required support. While their widespread adoption reflects perceived efficiency advantages over other support mechanisms, such as administratively-set tariffs, the effectiveness of RES-E auctions in meeting policy objectives is highly sensitive to specific design elements. This paper synthesizes policy-relevant insights from extensive research in the EU-funded AURES II project, which has analysed renewable energy auctions in diverse contexts with a focus on European countries. Key findings from the AURES II project address how auction design influences outcomes across multiple criteria, such as cost-effectiveness and project realisation rates. The paper highlights both successes and challenges in auction implementation, emphasizing the common trade-offs between policy objectives. Results underscore that well-designed auctions can promote RES-E efficiently, but also caution that suboptimal design can lead to unintended outcomes. Based on these findings, the paper offers forward-looking recommendations to guide policymakers in optimizing auction design to balance policy goals and enhance renewable energy deployment.

Keywords: Auction; Tenders; Renewable energy; Efficiency; Effectiveness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421525001314
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:203:y:2025:i:c:s0301421525001314

DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2025.114624

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 ().