Renewable Energy in Italy: an Explorative Analysis on the Use of Incentives

Abstract

Over the last decade the European Union and national governments have been largely promoting the use of clean energy through financial incentives, that helped in boosting investment projects in the renewable energy sector. Among the tools to encourage the use of renewable energy sources and energy efficiency, the introduction of state subsidy for the award of incentives for energy should certainly play a prominent role. The aim of the paper is twofold: i) to analyze the distribution of funds allocated across regions as well as between different target groups and between sources; ii) to verify whether these incentives have led towards an environmental convergence of the Italian Regions. The analysis takes into account invitations to tenders (58 European and 28 national) for the promotion of renewable energies approved from 2008 to 2014 for 20 Italian regions. The results allow to investigate strengths and weaknesses of the above mentioned tools and their effectiveness in reaching pre-defined objectives. This evaluation aims to be a useful tool for policy-makers, in order to have a clear picture of what has been done, what will be the future of policies aiming at incentivizing clean energy, bearing in mind that at the moment funds have been blocked.