Title of Dissertation: national renewable energy policy

 
 
 

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viii 
List of Figures 
Figure 1. Worldwide total primary energy supply by source, 1975-2014. ......................... 9 
Figure 2. Global average annual growth rate by energy source, 2004-2014. ................... 10 
Figure 3. Power generation by source in the Current Policies, New Policies, and 450 
Scenarios, 2040. ........................................................................................................ 11 
Figure 4. International trade of renewable energy products, 2006-2015. ......................... 12 
Figure 5. Market prices of solar PV modules, 2009 Q4-2012 Q1. ................................... 13 
Figure 6. Wind turbine prices in Europe, 2004-2012. ...................................................... 14 
Figure 7. Solar PV value chain. ........................................................................................ 18 
Figure 8. WTO disputes between the U.S. and China, 2002-2016. .................................. 21 
Figure 9. Hypothesized causal chain of policy change. .................................................... 27 
Figure 10. Solar PV module production, cumulative installed capacity, and price,
2004-2012. ................................................................................................................ 64 
Figure 11. Risks by source, 2006-2015. ........................................................................... 70 
Figure 12. Risks from external environment, 2006-2015. ................................................ 71 
Figure 13. Policy risks by source, 2006-2015................................................................... 73 
Figure 14. Revenue trend of Yingli Green Energy, 2006-2014. ....................................... 75 
Figure 15. Solar module manufacturing capacity of four major solar manufacturers, 2007-
2014........................................................................................................................... 78 
Figure 16. Net sales of First Solar by segment, 2008-2014. ............................................. 82 
Figure 17. U.S. import of photosensitive semiconductor devices including PV cells, 
1996-2015. ................................................................................................................ 90 
Figure 18. U.S. trade balance of solar goods. ................................................................... 90 
Figure 19. Actor congruence network .............................................................................. 99 
Figure 20. Actor congruence network visualized with frames. ...................................... 102 
Figure 21. U.S. electricity generation capacity additions, 2007-2014. ........................... 112 
Figure 22. U.S. PV installation by segment, 2000-2015. ............................................... 113 
Figure 23. U.S. wafer, cell, module prices. 2010-2015. ................................................. 114 
Figure 24. Member companies of the SEIA by business. ............................................... 115 
Figure 25. Solar PV cell and module production, 2007-2013. ....................................... 116 
Figure 26. Solar PV cell and module production in the U.S., 2007-2013. ..................... 116 
Figure 27. Location of the headquarters of the U.S. solar cell and module manufacturers, 
2015......................................................................................................................... 117 
Figure 28. Solar energy employment by sector, 2010-2015. .......................................... 119 
Figure 29. Federal expenditures for energy development by source, 1950-2010. .......... 120 
Figure 30. Energy production in South Korea, 2002-2014. ............................................ 157 
Figure 31. Sales of renewable energy products in South Korea, 2004-2013. ................. 158 
Figure 32. Number of Solar PV corporations, sales, and exports, 2004-2013. .............. 158 
Figure 33. Number of members of the Korea Photovoltaic Industry Association by 
business. .................................................................................................................. 159 
Figure 34. Additional capacity of solar PV plants receiving feed-in tariff, 2002-2013. 162 
Figure 35. Government spending on new and renewable energy, 2004-2013. ............... 163 
Figure 36. Solar PV installation, 2003-2014. ................................................................. 169 
Figure 37. System marginal price, 2012-2015. ............................................................... 170 
Figure 38. The prices of Renewable Energy Certificates, 2012-2016. ........................... 171 

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Figure 39. Interactions between solar industry and policy in the U.S. ........................... 195 
Figure 40. Interactions between solar industry and policy in South Korea. ................... 196 
Figure 41. Causal mechanism of renewable energy policy change. ............................... 198 

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x 
List of Abbreviations
 
AD 
Antidumping 
ARRA
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 
CASE
Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy 
CASM
Coalition for American Solar Manufacturing 
CPP 
Clean Power Plan 
c-Si 
Crystalline Silicon 
CVD
Countervailing Duties 
EGA
Environmental Goods Agreement
EIA 
Energy Information Administration 
EKC
Environmental Kuznets Curve 
EPC 
Engineering, procurement, and construction 
FIT 
Feed-in Tariff 
GATT
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
GW 
Gigawatts 
IEA 
International Energy Agency 
IPP 
Independent Power Producer
IRENA 
The International Renewable Energy Agency 
IGCC
Integrated Gasification Combination Cycle
ITC 
Investment Tax Credit 
KEA
Korea Energy Agency 
KNREA 
Korea New and Renewable Energy Association
KOPIA 
Korea Photovoltaic Industry Association 

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xi 
MKE
Ministry of Knowledge Economy 
MNCs
Multinational Corporations 
MOTIE 
Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy 
MW 
Megawatts 
NREC
New and Renewable Energy Center at the Korea Energy Agency 
OECD
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development 
PACE
Property Assessed Clean Energy 
PV 
Photovoltaic 
RECs
Renewable Energy Certificates
REN21 
Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21
st
Century
 
RPS 
Renewable Portfolio Standard 
SEIA
Solar Energy Industry Association 
SEPA
Smart Electric Power Alliance
SMP
System Marginal Price
TPES
Total Primary Energy Supply 
WTO
World Trade Organization

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1 
Chapter 1. Introduction 
Policy problem and research question 
Renewable energy has expanded rapidly in recent years. Worldwide renewable 
power capacity has increased from 1,037 GW in 2006 to 1,985 GW in 2015.
1
New 
investment in clean energy has expanded from $41 billion in 2004 to $272 billion in 
2014.
2
Much of this expansion has been based on governmental support, via policy 
requirements, subsidies, R&D funding, or other mechanisms. Governments have 
promoted the use of renewable energy to address various energy and environmental 
issues they face such as climate change mitigation, energy security, and air pollution. As 
the costs of renewable energy sources have historically been higher than conventional 
energy sources, support policies were essential for the promotion of renewable energy. In 
this vein, the number and the variety of renewable energy policies have sharply increased 
around the world. For instance, as of early 2015, 145 countries have adopted renewable 
energy support policies—more than 9 times of that in 2005, which was only 15 
countries.
3
Recently, different types of renewable energy policies from the support policies 
have been introduced in a number of countries (Table 1). While the support policies serve 
1
Whiteman, Adrian, Tobias Rinke, Javier Esparrago and Samah Elsayed.