Wind power and market integration, comparative study of financing schemes

The financing scheme of renewable energies is a key factor for their development pace and cost. As some countries like France, Germany or Spain have chosen a Feed-in Tariff (FiT) scheme, there are in fact four possible financing schemes: FiT, ex-post prime, ex-ante prime, and quotas (green certificates). A market convergence is then supposed to meet two main objectives: the control of market distortions related to wind energy development, and the optimization of wind energy production with respect to market signals. The authors analyse the underlying economic challenges and the ability of financing schemes to meet these objectives within a short term horizon (2015). They present the different financing schemes, analyse the impact of three key economic factors (market distortion, production optimization, financing costs)