Solmaria Halleck Vega (p), Antoine Mandel , Katrin Millock

Technology transfers are considered essential means to obtain the objectives of greenhouse gas emissions reductions. These transfers generally occur through firms engaging in international trade, foreign direct investment and licensing. In climate policy, multilateral mechanisms have been agreed upon, such as the Technology Mechanism under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. In empirical analyses, however, green technology transfers tend to be studied in a bilateral perspective, ignoring the influence of indirect connections in the diffusion process. Yet, in markets, firms interact and their network of connections is influenced by both government policy and by multilateral agreements. This paper examines the role of the different incentives in explaining diffusion of green technology from a network perspective. The proposed model combines epidemiological diffusion and network inference models inspired from computer science. Since wind energy is the renewable energy source with the highest growth in capacity after solar photovoltaic technology, the empirical analysis uses data on the diffusion of wind turbines. Moreover, wind energy makes for an interesting case as it is a sufficiently mature technology to observe its diffusion both globally and over a long period of time. The data bring new insights into diffusion since it measures actual installation of wind turbines since the early 1980s instead of using proxies such as patents or transfers under the Clean Development Mechanism. In addition, the model includes both domestic (e.g. renewable energy policy) as well as bilateral and multilateral determinants of diffusion (e.g. international trade and environmental agreements).

João Basilio Pereima (p), Matheus Alexandria Sposito

Decentralized generation of solar power has become one of the great energy alternatives for the world and it is in its first stages of dissemination as a new disruptive technology, with diverse effects on the economic development and the organization of the urban centres, generating structural changes that reach the functioning of the energy market, the urban centres dynamics and the household's behaviour whose play a simultaneous role as consumer/producer. Currently, there are few models for diffusion of decentralized solar generation which despite of using agent-based. We designed a diffusion model to overcome the existing limitations by modelling a city of hypothetical topology that integrates several layers and add several micro and macroeconomic variables that are important for a systemic understanding of the problem. Relevant contributions include:
a.) a model capable of dealing with the problem from the urban centre perspective;
b.) spatially oriented diffusion that depends on the topological distribution of residences in an urban centre;
c.) a real time-line with hourly solar radiation incidence, consumption and production in the short-run, synchronized with monthly households decision and accountability going up to 10 years of projection.
d.) integration between the physical network (IEEE 33 standard) and economic decisions;
e.) endogenous price setting considering different rules and market regulation framework;
f.) cash flow of system operators and households; and finally,
g.) evaluation of public policy, such as subsidies, minimum prices, tax and investments.

Matteo Basso (p), Stefania Tonin

As an ambitious initiative launched in 2008, the Covenant of Mayors (CoM) aims at fostering – on a voluntary basis – the role of cities in implementing the 20-20-20 European climate-energy package. This political commitment becomes effective only after the formal elaboration and adoption, by city councils, of specific Sustainable Energy Action Plans (SEAPs) through which a set of priority measures and actions to reach the reduction target in CO2 emissions (-20%) by 2020 is defined.
Activities of monitoring, reporting and evaluation are all given a central role in the overall SEAPs’ planning process, particularly in the implementation phase. Indeed, cities are requested by the European Commission (EC) to regularly submit monitoring reports with the aim of evaluating the effectiveness of the planned actions, and predict corrective actions if necessary. Nevertheless, according to the ongoing scientific debates, the often incomplete monitoring reports elaborated by cities are unlikely to ensure an effective evaluation (both in itinere and ex post) of the investment costs, the achieved targets and, perhaps even more desirable, of the economic benefits associated to the implementation of the plans. Similarly, an appropriate reflection on the relationships between costs and benefits of the actions included in the SEAPs is only partially addressed by that part of the academic literature that, so far, has sought to analyse the state-of-the-art of the CoM initiative.
The aim of this contribution is twofold. Looking specifically at the actions planned and actually realized by European cities within their SEAPs, it seeks firstly to provide a picture of the state-of-the art of their implementation through official data provided by the EC’s Joint Research Centre (the office which supports technically and scientifically the CoM’s signatories, and eventually approves their plans). Secondly, drawing on the framework of the «implementation research» and an extensive literature review, it aims at exploring the open challenges (financial, legislative, technical, governance, but also in terms of monitoring and evaluation) which need to be addressed to ensure their effective implementation, and to avoid the general risk that these plans remain mere tools of a «symbolic policy».