POLIMP 2nd Policy Brief: Financing Renewable Energy for Europe: The way forward

Renewable energy (RE) is of manifold importance in the context of climate change. Despite the advantages of adopting RE as a major source of energy, several challenges have to be overcome before its wider adoption by different European Union (EU) member states (MS). The financial and economic crisis of 2008 was a great setback for the RE industry and led to a substantial weakening of policies in various EU countries. Ex post changes in Feed In Tariffs, in particular, have led to reductions in investment. So far, greenhouse gas mitigation (GHG) policies have provided a much lower incentive for RE than support policies. On the other hand, RE support policies have had detrimental effects on GHG mitigation. The harmonisation of RE support policies may eventually improve policy performance.