When outcomes are the reflection of the analysis criteria: A review of the tradable green certificate assessments

The tradable green certificates (TGC) framework is a prevalent policy support scheme enacted to stimulate investments in electricity from renewable energy sources (RES-E). In several countries, including Sweden and Norway, the TGC framework is currently under reevaluation. In this process, academic literature plays a crucial role in reflecting the outcomes of this policy framework. The outcomes, however, are often limited by the analysis criteria, which reflect what has been accounted for or disregarded when assessing the performance of the TGC framework. The analysis criteria also stress what is considered as a successful outcome. Given the importance of such criteria, this paper presents an extensive and systemic literature review of academic publications assessing the performance of the TGC framework. The findings are to provide an overview of the publications’ analysis criteria and outline their outcomes. We also provide descriptive statistics for the publications and examine the average citation record of the publications that use various analysis criteria in order to explore their relative impact on later studies. These findings can help policymakers put the assessments into perspective when reevaluating a country׳s TGC system. They also suggest several intriguing directions for future studies in this field.