Carbon price and wind power support in Denmark

This paper aims at characterizing the conditions of wind power deployment in order to infer a carbon price level that would provide wind power with comparable advantage over fossil fuel technologies as effective wind support policies. The analysis is conducted on Denmark after the electricity market liberalization. Probit and tobit techniques are employed to take account of a potential threshold effect. I find that the level and type of the support policy are the dominant drivers of deployment. A feed-in tariff significantly brings more wind power in than a premium policy. The additional capacity installed monthly increases by more than 1 MW for each additional €/MWh of support. This is compared to the effect of the electricity price, investment cost, interest rate and general economic activity. If the policy is a premium, I find that 23€/MWh of support in addition to electricity price is needed to observe the connection of new turbines to the grid with a 0.5 probability. I convert this support level into a carbon price of 27€/ton if wind power competes with coal, and 48€/t if it competes with gas. - Highlights: •I analyze wind power development in Denmark between 2000 and 2010. •I use probit and tobit techniques to assess the determinants of this deployment. •The level and policy type of wind power support are the main drivers. •I deduct the critical level of premium needed to trigger wind power. •I convert this into an equivalent carbon price and I find that it is below 50€/ton.