Financial support vis-à-vis share of wind generation: is there an inflection point?

Abstract

Wind power is one of the leading source of renewable energy in terms of installed capacity, power generation and technology maturity in the world today. It is promoted through financial support such as Feed-In Tariffs (FIT), renewable certificates, investment grants and tax incentives almost everywhere in the world. Attractive power pricing and a general global thrust for renewables have resulted in increasing the wind power capacity from 17 GW in 2000 to 514 GW in 2017. This paper analyses the relationship between financial mechanisms and wind capacity and wind power generation across 15 countries and 10 US states over 2006–2017. These countries/states contribute to 88% of total wind generation capacity in 2017, and contribution of their individual wind capacities to overall electricity generation rose from 0.15 to 24.2% (2006) to 1.2–38.5% (2017). Our analysis indicates that the trend of financial support reverses beyond an inflection point vis-à-vis the share of wind power in total power generated. The inflection point exists for all countries but the value varies across countries. The relationships are statistically significant. This has important policy implications with regard to the governments’ approach towards promoting wind power as share of wind generation increases.