Electricity Feed Laws & Feed-in Tariffs
While not exhaustive, this site contains an extensive collection of articles on Feed-in Tariffs, Advanced Renewable Tariffs, Renewable Energy Payments, and what some Americans are calling CLEAN contracts. Learn more about feed-in tariffs and how they have been successful in Europe, and how they can benefit North Americans.
What are Feed-in Tariffs?
Feed-in tariffs are simply payments per kilowatt-hour for electricity generated by a renewable resource. In North America this simple idea is known by many different names: Electricity Feed Laws, Feed-in Laws, Feed-in Tariffs (FITs), Advanced Renewable Tariffs (ARTs), Renewable Tariffs, Renewable Energy Payments, and more recently CLEAN (for Clean Local Energy Accessible Now) contracts. Regardless of the name, they are the world’s most successful policy mechanism for stimulating the rapid development of renewable energy.
Feed-in tariffs are also the most egalitarian method for determining where, when, and how much renewable generating capacity will be installed. Renewable Tariffs enable homeowners, farmers, cooperatives, and First Nations (Native North Americans) to participate on an equal footing with large commercial developers of renewable energy.
Electricity Feed Laws permit the interconnection of renewable sources of electricity with the electric-utility network and at the same time specify how much the renewable generator is paid for their electricity and over how long a period.
Electricity Feed Laws have been widely used in Europe, most notably in Germany, France, and Spain.
Advanced Renewable Tariffs (ARTs) are the modern version of Electricity Feed Laws. ARTs differ from simpler feed-in tariffs in several important ways. Most importantly, ARTs are differentiated by technology, application, project size, or resource intensity. There is one price for wind energy, another price for solar, and so on. Tariffs within each technology can also be differentiated by project size or, in the case of wind and solar energy, by the productivity of the resource. Tariffs for new projects are also subject to periodic review to determine if the tariffs are sufficiently robust to meet the targets desired in the time allotted.
What are Tariffs?
Tariffs are the price paid per kilowatt-hour of electricity consumed, or in this case, generated. The term is commonly used in North America’s electric utility industry. The term is also commonly used in Europe. Tariffs are not taxes nor in this context customs duties on goods crossing international borders.
IPCC On the Relation Between Emission Trade System and Feed-In Tariff
By
Karl-friedrich Lenz
Reducing the costs of solar by the German feed-in tariff has brought costs down so far that China is now deploying massive amounts.
Feed-in Tariffs in Turmoil
By
Lincoln L. Davies, Kirsten Allen
It offers a more nuanced view of FITs than is often offered. In turn, it extracts four key lessons lawmakers should keep in mind when designing FITs: (1) the laws tend to be effective, but (2) internal modification of the laws’ design is unavoidable, (3) feed-in tariffs often impact the legal and physical systems around them in unforeseen ways, and (4) FITs’ unpredictability must be carefully managed.
Renewables International: Feed-in tariffs: unleashing market forces
By
Craig Morris
If those calling for market competition and free enterprise understood FITs properly, they would love the policy.
SolarServer: EPIA–37 GW of solar PV installed globally in 2013, driven by Asian feed-in tariffs
By
EPIA notes that despite a decline in political support in Europe, feed-in tariffs in China and Japan have led to fast-growing markets in those nations.
GET: Feed-in tariffs – do they discourage efficiency?
By
Craig Morris
As someone with a moderately open mind, I promote the sharing of best practices. If you support renewables, feed-in tariffs (FITs) seem an obvious choice; they have been used successfully – even predominantly – for practically all types of renewable energy. The IEA says more than 70 percent of PV installed worldwide by the end of 2012 was the result of FITs.
IGov: Achieving energy transitions – Which RES policies are best applied when?
By
Lena Kitzing and Catherine Mitchell
We show, using policy analysis and socioeconomic considerations including uncertainty, that in the first phase, it is beneficial to focus on establishing support policy instruments which reduce risk for investors (such as feed-in tariffs). This will lead to faster and less costly renewable deployment, and will increase the likelihood of achieving a successful transition into the second phase . . .
