نوآوری در فن آوری های انرژی بادی
Abstract
1- Introduction
2- Innovation and policies: China’s case of wind power technologies
3- Data and methods
4- Empirical results and discussion
5- Concluding remarks and policy suggestions
References
Abstract
The international community generally agrees that renewable energy, such as wind power, is conducive for achieving CO2 mitigation, environmental protection, energy savings, and energy security. The innovation in wind power technologies is vital to achieving a transformation of energy structure. The study sought to investigate the effects of policies (feed-in tariffs and research and development spending), their interaction, wind power deployment and electricity prices on wind power technology innovation at the provincial level in China, based on negative binomial fixed effect regression model and provincial panel data from 2006 to 2016. The following conclusions are drawn from the findings: (1) demand-pull policies through feed-in tariff policy promote innovation in wind power technologies; (2) higher feed-in tariffs of wind power induce greater stock of patents in wind technologies; (3) technology-push policies through research and development spending support wind power technological innovation; (4) only research and development funding investment in industrial enterprises under the implementation of feed-in tariff policy can stimulate greater patent stock due to the fact that the wind power industry enterprises are gainers for feed-in tariff policy, indicating that there is an interaction effect; (5) improving the wind power deployment drives wind power technology patents; (6) increasing electricity prices will incentivize innovation of wind power manufacturers in order to reduce cost and obtain more profit.
Introduction
Promoting wind power is regarded as an important strategy for achieving CO2 mitigation, environmental protection, energy savings and energy security [1]. Technological progress is the key to realizing energy conservation [2]. The innovation in wind power technologies is vital to achieving a transformation of energy structure and sustainable economy transition. The share of wind power in the total electricity generation increased from 0.1% in 2006 to 4.54% in 2017, which illustrates that though the share of wind power has increased significantly, the share is still low. It is undeniable that the booming development of wind power is conducive to the cost reduction under wind power technological innovation. However, innovation in wind power technologies relies on policy supports. In order to achieve wind power technological innovation to promote a substantial increase in wind power generation, effective policy supports need to be implemented. The policy supports for innovation in wind power technologies include feed-in tariffs, tax incentives, tradable renewable energy certificates, investment on research and development (R&D) activities, standardization of products, domestic content protection policy and so on, which stimulate learning-by-doing and learning-by-using processes to reduce costs for wind power [3–4]. These various policies can be classified as either demand-pull policies (e.g. feed-in tariffs) or technology-push policies (e.g. R&D spending).