Impacts of policies on innovation in wind power technologies in China

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.