Pushing forward the deployment of renewable energy: Do cross-national spillovers of policy instruments matter?

The deployment of renewables is a vital option for tackling the global challenge of climate change and achieving carbon neutrality. In international energy policy debates, existing literature has detected the outcome of various policy instruments and the driving factors of renewables development, whereas the spatial effects of different policy instruments on renewables deployment at a cross-national level have not been addressed. The novelty of this study lies in filling this gap through investigating the spatial interdependence effect of technology-push and demand-pull policies on the diffusion of renewables in European Union countries from multidimensional perspective of geography, institution, and culture. The results demonstrate that demand-pull policies give great impetus to the diffusion of domestic renewables, while the positive role of technology-push policies turns out to be comparatively less influential. From the transnational spillover perspective, it is confirmed that the domestic deployment of renewables is influenced to some extent by various policy instruments of geographically adjacent or institutionally and culturally similar regions. In addition, the spatial spillover effect of demand-pull policies is much stronger than that of technology-push policies. These findings from spatial perspective provide new insights for public policy guidance to achieve the sustainability of energy landscape.