IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/rensus/v4y2000i2p177-212.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The role of public policy in emerging green power markets: an analysis of marketer preferences

Author

Listed:
  • Wiser, R. H.

Abstract

Green power marketing has been heralded by some as a means to create a private market for renewable energy that is driven by customer demand for green products. This article challenges the premise -- sometimes proffered in debates over green markets -- that profitable, sizable, credible markets for green products will evolve naturally without supportive public policies. Relying primarily on surveys and interviews of US green power marketers, the article examines the role of specific regulatory and legislative policies in 'enabling' the green market, and searches for those policies that are believed by marketers to be the most conducive or detrimental to the expansion of the green market. We find that marketers: (1) believe that profitable green power markets will only develop if a solid foundation of supportive policies exists; (2) believe that establishing overall price competition and encouraging customer switching are the top priorities; (3) are somewhat leery of government-sponsored or mandated public information programs; and (4) oppose three specific renewable energy policies that are frequently advocated by renewable energy enthusiasts, but that may have negative impacts on the green marketers' profitability. The stated preferences of green marketers shed light on ways to foster renewables by means of the green market. Because the interests of marketers do not coincide perfectly with those of society, however, this study also recognizes other normative perspectives and highlights policy tensions at the heart of current debates related to green markets. By examining these conflicts, we identify three key policy questions that should direct future research: To what extent should price competition and customer switching be encouraged at the expense of cost shifting? What requirements should be imposed to ensure credibility in green products and marketing? How should the green power market and broader renewable energy policies interact?

Suggested Citation

  • Wiser, R. H., 2000. "The role of public policy in emerging green power markets: an analysis of marketer preferences," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 177-212, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:rensus:v:4:y:2000:i:2:p:177-212
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364-0321(99)00015-5
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wiser, Ryan H., 1998. "Green power marketing: increasing customer demand for renewable energy," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 107-119, June.
    2. Nakarado, Gary L, 1996. "A marketing orientation is the key to a sustainable energy future," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 187-193, February.
    3. Fouquet, Roger, 1998. "The United Kingdom demand for renewable electricity in a liberalised market," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 281-293, March.
    4. Ronald H. Coase, 2008. "The Institutional Structure of Production," Springer Books, in: Claude Ménard & Mary M. Shirley (ed.), Handbook of New Institutional Economics, chapter 2, pages 31-39, Springer.
    5. Costello, Kenneth W., 1995. "The next Gordian Knot for state regulators and electric utilities: The unbundling of retail services," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 8(9), pages 38-49, November.
    6. Rader, Nancy A. & Norgaard, Richard B., 1996. "Efficiency and sustainability in restructured electricity markets: the renewables portfolio standard," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 9(6), pages 37-49, July.
    7. Paul L. Joskow, 1998. "Electricity Sectors in Transition," The Energy Journal, , vol. 19(2), pages 25-52, April.
    8. Asmus, Peter, 1997. "Power to the people: local governments go green," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 10(9), pages 78-82, November.
    9. Ridley, Scott, 1997. "Local government: the sleeping giant in electric industry restructuring," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 10(9), pages 13-21, November.
    10. Joskow, Paul L., 1996. "Does stranded cost recovery distort competition?," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 31-45, April.
    11. Beales, Howard & Craswell, Richard & Salop, Steven C, 1981. "The Efficient Regulation of Consumer Information," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(3), pages 491-539, December.
    12. Borenstein, Severin & Bushnell, James & Kahn, Edward & Stoft, Steven, 1995. "Market power in California electricity markets," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 5(3-4), pages 219-236.
    13. Hahn, Robert W & Stavins, Robert N, 1992. "Economic Incentives for Environmental Protection: Integrating Theory and Practice," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(2), pages 464-468, May.
    14. Tye, William B. & Graves, Frank C., 1996. "Stranded cost recovery and competition on equal terms," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 9(10), pages 61-70, December.
    15. Douglass C. North, 1991. "Institutions," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 97-112, Winter.
    16. Garber, Don & Hogan, Willian W. & Ruff, Larry, 1994. "An efficient electricity market: Using a pool to support real competition," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 7(7), pages 48-60, September.
    17. R. H. Coase, 2013. "The Problem of Social Cost," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(4), pages 837-877.
    18. Costello, Kenneth W. & Graniere, Robert J., 1997. "The outlook for a restructured U.S. electric power industry: lessons from deregulation," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 81-91, May.
    19. Rábago, Karl & Wiser, Ryan & Hamrin, Jan, 1998. "The Green-e program: an opportunity for customers," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 37-45.
    20. Janet A. Weiss & Mary Tschirhart, 1994. "Public information campaigns as policy instruments," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(1), pages 82-119.
    21. David M. Newbery, 1995. "Power Markets and Market Power," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3), pages 39-66.
    22. Rohrbach, John, 1999. "Made in the Keystone State: Pennsylvania's Approach to Retail Electric Competition," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 26-39, January.
    23. Hartman, Raymond S. & Tabors, Richard D., 1998. "Optimal operating arrangements in the restructured world: economic issues," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 75-83, February.
    24. George A. Akerlof, 1970. "The Market for "Lemons": Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(3), pages 488-500.
    25. Aleksandr Rudkevich & Max Duckworth & Richard Rosen, 1998. "Modeling Electricity Pricing in a Deregulated Generation Industry: The Potential for Oligopoly Pricing in a Poolco," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3), pages 19-48.
    26. Francis M. Bator, 1958. "The Anatomy of Market Failure," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 72(3), pages 351-379.
    27. Landon, John H. & Kahn, Edward P., 1996. "Retail access pilot programs: where's the beef?," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 9(10), pages 19-25, December.
    28. Talbot, Neil, 1999. "The Right Path for Electricity Restructuring: 10 Guidelines for State Legislation," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 16-25, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mah, Daphne Ngar-yin & van der Vleuten, Johannes Marinus & Hills, Peter & Tao, Julia, 2012. "Consumer perceptions of smart grid development: Results of a Hong Kong survey and policy implications," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 204-216.
    2. Yang, Yan-Shen & Xie, Bai-Chen & Tan, Xu, 2024. "Impact of green power trading mechanism on power generation and interregional transmission in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    3. Shakeel, Shah Rukh & Takala, Josu & Zhu, Lian-Dong, 2017. "Commercialization of renewable energy technologies: A ladder building approach," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 855-867.
    4. Puppim de Oliveira, J. A., 2002. "The policymaking process for creating competitive assets for the use of biomass energy: the Brazilian alcohol programme," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 6(1-2), pages 129-140.
    5. Gustavsson, Leif & Madlener, Reinhard, 2003. "CO2 mitigation costs of large-scale bioenergy technologies in competitive electricity markets," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 28(14), pages 1405-1425.
    6. Zhou, Shan & Solomon, Barry D., 2021. "The interplay between renewable portfolio standards and voluntary green power markets in the United States," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 720-729.
    7. Xiangsheng Dou, 2017. "Low Carbon Technology Innovation, Carbon Emissions Trading and Relevant Policy Support for China s Low Carbon Economy Development," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 7(2), pages 172-184.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Glenn Furton & Adam Martin, 2019. "Beyond market failure and government failure," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 178(1), pages 197-216, January.
    2. J.A. den Hertog, 2010. "Review of economic theories of regulation," Working Papers 10-18, Utrecht School of Economics.
    3. Benito Arruñada, 2012. "Property as an economic concept: reconciling legal and economic conceptions of property rights in a Coasean framework," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 59(2), pages 121-144, July.
    4. Anetta Čaplánová & Marcel Novák, 2015. "Transakčné náklady, vlastnícke práva a externality - k vedeckému odkazu R. H. Coasea [Transaction Costs, Property Rights and Externalities - on the Contribution of R. H. Coase to Economic]," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2015(2), pages 244-257.
    5. Holleran, Erin & Bredahl, Maury E. & Zaibet, Lokman, 1999. "Private incentives for adopting food safety and quality assurance," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(6), pages 669-683, December.
    6. Sovacool, Benjamin K., 2015. "The political economy of pollution markets: Historical lessons for modern energy and climate planners," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 943-953.
    7. Bianchini, Stefano & Llerena, Patrick & Martino, Roberto, 2019. "The impact of R&D subsidies under different institutional frameworks," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 65-78.
    8. Geoffrey R D Underhill, 2007. "Markets, Institutions, and Transaction Costs: The Endogeneity of Governance," WEF Working Papers 0025, ESRC World Economy and Finance Research Programme, Birkbeck, University of London.
    9. repec:zbw:inwedp:702017 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Manuel Willington & Eduardo Saavedra, 2011. "Eficiencia Productiva y Asignación de Cuotas de Pesca en Chile: Teorema de Coase y Asimetrías de Información," ILADES-UAH Working Papers inv264, Universidad Alberto Hurtado/School of Economics and Business.
    11. Marco FRIGERIO & Daniela VANDONE, 2018. "Virtuous or Vicious? Development Banks in Europe," Departmental Working Papers 2018-07, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    12. Yochanan Shachmurove, 2012. "Failing Institutions Are at the Core of the U.S. Financial Crisis," PIER Working Paper Archive 12-040, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    13. Gossling, Stefan & Kunkel, Timo & Schumacher, Kim & Heck, Nadine & Birkemeyer, Johannes & Froese, Jens & Naber, Nils & Schliermann, Elke, 2005. "A target group-specific approach to "green" power retailing: students as consumers of renewable energy," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 69-83, February.
    14. Cerin, Pontus, 2006. "Bringing economic opportunity into line with environmental influence: A discussion on the Coase theorem and the Porter and van der Linde hypothesis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 209-225, February.
    15. Alessio M. Pacces, 2021. "Will the EU Taxonomy Regulation Foster Sustainable Corporate Governance?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-21, November.
    16. Todorova, Tamara, 2015. "The Transaction-Cost Roots of Market Failure," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 0(1(11)), pages 30-44.
    17. Peter Lloyd & Cassey Lee, 2018. "A Review Of The Recent Literature On The Institutional Economics Analysis Of The Long†Run Performance Of Nations," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 1-22, February.
    18. Chechelski, Piotr & Grochowska, Renata & Łopaciuk, Wiesław & Ślązak, Emil & Wasilewski, Adam & Wigier, Marek, 2012. "Development est public policy support in the food economy – the example of Poland," Multiannual Program Reports 164845, Institute of Agricultural and Food Economics - National Research Institute (IAFE-NRI).
    19. Franziska Rischkowsky & Thomas Döring, 2008. "Consumer Policy in a Market Economy Considerations from the Perspective of the Economics of Information, the New Institutional Economics as well as Behavioural Economics," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 285-313, September.
    20. Essiane, Patrick-Nelson Daniel, 2020. "De l'Ancienne Economie Institutionnelle à la Nouvelle Economie Institutionnelle: une introduction à quelques débats [Old Institutional Economics and New Institutional Economics: an Introduction to ," MPRA Paper 102858, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Herath, Deepananda P.B. & Weersink, Alfons, 1999. "Transaction Costs, Economic Instruments And Environmental Policies," 1999 Annual meeting, August 8-11, Nashville, TN 21588, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:rensus:v:4:y:2000:i:2:p:177-212. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.