ABSTRACT
This chapter is largely descriptive. It gives an overview of the framework for renewable energy support in the EU, describing the support mechanisms applied in the EU and analysing why the attempted European harmonisation of these national mechanisms failed. First, this chapter familiarises the reader with the different support instruments for renewable electricity. Even though feed-in tariffs (FITs) are applied by most countries, it is important to understand how other instruments basically function in order to interpret actors’ positions when they argue either in favour or against one or another instrument. We introduce the reader to the most widely used support instruments for renewable electricity, namely, tendering schemes (section 3.1.1), quota-based mechanisms (section 3.1.2), feed-in tariffs (section 3.1.3) and fiscal incentives (section 3.1.4). In the subsequent section we describe the two unsuccessful attempts to harmonise these support instrument in the years preceding the adaptation of the two renewable energy directives in 2001 and 2009 (see section 3.2 and 3.3). The arguments for and against harmonisation will be summarised in section 3.4. Finally, section 3.5 will outline the detailed analytical approach to the comparison of feed-in tariffs in Germany, Spain and France that follows in the Chapter 4–7.
