Creating a Pro-Renewables Environment

This course is a part of Clean Power, a 3-course Professional Certificate series from edX.

This course provides the tools needed to build a low-carbon power sector around the world. By diving into the perspective of different players in the power sector - from investors through to utilities, regulators and project developers - you will be able to choose the right strategies, policies and other levers needed to incentivise a cleaner power mix in your own context.This course explores the mix of approaches that can create a pro-renewables environment. It explores this from a policy, regulatory and supply-chain perspective and examines the incentives and rules available. Key policies are brought to life through case studies, learning from both success and failure.Key messages of the course include:

Ambitions for renewable electricity must be grounded in technical and financial feasibility

Pro-renewables environments recognise the needs of energy supply chain actors (e.g. project developers, utilities, regulators, electricity customers) and balances pricing, fiscal and financial and wider policies to incentivise and drive deployment

There are multiple ways to encourage deployment of renewables across different scales – these have strengths and weaknesses and must balance rate of deployment, affordability and efficiency of generation

Incentives and rules are a package and can be aligned to deliver affordable, efficient renewable electricity - several real-world examples demonstrate this

Different countries have succeeded and failed in creating pro-renewables environments – demonstrating that while lessons can be used from these experiences, there is no single route to success and the environment must be bespoke to the circumstances of the country.  

This course should help decision makers across the electricity supply chain, in both the public and private sector, understand what mix of incentives is ideal from their perspective.

What you'll learn

• Understand how policy and regulation can create a pro-renewables environment
• Analyse different regulatory and non-regulatory mechanisms and approaches for incentivising renewables deployment
• Evaluate the drivers for businesses in the renewable electricity supply chain and how this relates to the policy and regulatory environment
• Explore through case studies how pro-renewables policy and regulatory environment has been implemented