Análisis de los impactos económicos de las energías renovables en Europaemisiones evitadas y ahorro de combustibles fósiles

Abstract

Global issues, such as climate change, unsustainable fossil fuels and energy dependence, urge a shift to a sustainable development model. Renewable energies play an important role in this energy transformation, because they are clean, sustainable and do not run out. It has been well-established that generating electricity, especially from fossil fuels, creates environmental and socioeconomic impacts on third parties, which are not included in the price. These impacts are referred to as externalities. Regarding renewable energies, one of the main justifications for using public support mechanisms is the internalization of these externalities. In the last years, many articles in the specialised press have been focused on the costs of public support to renewable energies and they do not analyse in depth the benefits. The aim of this paper is to close this gap and quantify the cost of public support and two relevant economic impacts related to renewable energies in terms of CO2 emission abatement and fossil fuels substitution. This analysis is focused on the impacts of wind and photovoltaic energies in the European Union during a six-year period (2009-2013). The results contribute to give an order of magnitude of the costs and benefits associated to wind and solar photovoltaic energies in the considered period, although they cannot be compared directly. The use of the methodology presented in this work can be an useful input to the conception, implementation and monitoring of future policies targeting to support the deployment of renewable energy technologies.