Peer-to-peer financing mechanisms to accelerate renewable energy deployment

K. Branker, E. Shackles and Joshua Pearce

Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment, 2011, vol. 1, issue 2, 138-155

Abstract: Despite the clear need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, lack of access to capital and appropriate financing mechanisms has limited the deployment of renewable energy technologies (RETs). Feed-in tariff (FIT) programmes have been used successfully in many countries to make RETs more economically feasible. Unfortunately, the large capital costs of RETs can result both in the slow uptake of FIT programmes and incomplete capture of deployment potential. Subsidies are concentrated in financial institutions rather than the greater population as traditional bank loans are required to fund RET projects. This article critically analyses and considers the political, financial and logistical risks of an innovative peer-to-peer (P2P) financing mechanism. This mechanism has the goal of increasing RET deployment capacity under an FIT programme in an effort to equitably distribute both the environmental and economic advantages throughout the entire population. Using the Ontario FIT programme as a case study, this article illustrates how the guaranteed income stream from a solar photovoltaic system can be modelled as an investment and how P2P lending mechanisms can then be used to provide capital for the initial costs. The requirements for and limitations of these types of funding mechanisms for RETs are quantified and discussed and future work to deploy this methodology is described.

Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/20430795.2011.582325 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Peer-to-Peer Financing Mechanisms to Accelerate Renewable Energy Deployment (2011)
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:taf:jsustf:v:1:y:2011:i:2:p:138-155

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/TSFI20

DOI: 10.1080/20430795.2011.582325

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment is currently edited by Dr Matthew Haigh

More articles in Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().