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Counteracting market concentration in renewable energy auctions: Lessons learned from South Africa

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  • Kruger, Wikus
  • Nygaard, Ivan
  • Kitzing, Lena

Abstract

Competitive bidding programmes, or auctions, are becoming the dominant method for procuring utility-scale renewable energy generation capacity and have coincided with significant cost reductions of renewable energy (RE) technologies. The use of price in auctions as the main awarding criterion has been criticized for apparently leading to market concentration and dominance in project ownership. We investigate: to what extent South Africa's renewable energy auction programme has contributed to market concentration and dominance; if market concentration and dominance have a negative impact on electricity cost in the auction; and to what extent measures taken to counteract market concentration and dominance have led to improved competition and diversity of project ownership.

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  • Kruger, Wikus & Nygaard, Ivan & Kitzing, Lena, 2021. "Counteracting market concentration in renewable energy auctions: Lessons learned from South Africa," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 148(PB).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:148:y:2021:i:pb:s0301421520307060
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2020.111995
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    5. Kitzing, Lena & Siddique, Muhammad Bilal & Nygaard, Ivan & Kruger, Wikus, 2022. "Worth the wait: How South Africa's renewable energy auctions perform compared to Europe's leading countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    6. Tiedemann, Silvana & Müller-Hansen, Finn, 2023. "Auctions to phase out coal power: Lessons learned from Germany," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    7. Mike Morris & Glen Robbins & Ulrich Hansen & Ivan Nygard, 2022. "The wind energy global value chain localisation and industrial policy failure in South Africa," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 5(4), pages 490-511, December.
    8. Kiefer, Christoph P. & del Río, Pablo, 2024. "Analysing the impact of renewable energy auctions on market concentration," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 221(C).

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