A review on global wind energy policy

Abstract

With the increasing negative effects of fossil fuel combustion on the environment in addition to limited stock of fossil fuel have forced many countries to inquire into and change to environmentally friendly alternatives that are renewable to sustain the increasing energy demand. Energy policy plays a vital role to mitigate the impacts of global warming and crisis of energy availability. This paper explores the wind energy industry from the point of view of the wind energy policy. It is noticed that energy policy could help increasing wind power generation as well as stimulating the energy industry. It may be stated that without specific energy policy, a country would not be able to solve the acute problems like reducing greenhouse gases (GHGs) emission, scarcity of energy, etc. This paper discussed the existing successful energy policies for few selected countries. Based on literatures, it has been found that FIT, RPS, incentives, pricing law and Quota system are the most useful energy policies practiced by many countries around the world. Then, status of wind energy policy for Malaysia was investigated and compared with few selected countries around the world.

Introduction

Energy policy is the manner and the country's strategy in which a given entity (often governmental) decides to address issues of energy development along with the development of the energy industry to sustain its growth including energy production, distribution and consumption. The attributes of energy policy may include legislation, international treaties, incentives to investment, the country's targeted energy generation, guidelines for energy conservation, strategies to stimulate the energy industry, taxation and other public policy techniques as well as the focus on new (usually renewable) energy sources. However, there are many countries that do not have specific policies on wind energy, which means that wind energy, if any, has not yet been explored as an alternative [1], [2].

Wind energy, the world's fastest growing energy source, is a clean and renewable source of energy that has been in use for centuries in Europe and more recently in the United States and other nations. Wind turbines, both large and small, produce electricity for utilities and home owners and remote villages.

A new approach to wind energy offers a clear path to a more secure and prosperous future and more livable world for the human being as well as for the entire living creature. Renewable energy sources are easily accessible to mankind around the world. It is not only available in a wide range but is also abundant in nature. Increased use of wind energy and other renewable energy sources will spur economic growth, create job opportunity, enhance national security, protect consumers from price spikes or supply shortages associated with global fuel markets and dramatically reduce the pollutant that is warming the planet which causes greenhouse effect [2], [3], [4].

Renewable energies are regarded as a key factor in mitigating global climate change in the future. Among various renewable energy sources, wind energy in particular has achieved maturity in the energy market, and has experienced the greatest growth worldwide over the past few years, as illustrated in Fig. 1 [5]. According to the assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concerning wind energy potential, intermittent wind power on a large grid can contribute an estimated 15–20% of annual electricity production without special arrangements for storage, backup, or load management [6].

Wind energy was the fastest growing energy technology in the 90s, in terms of percentage of yearly growth of installed capacity per technology source. As Paul [7] noticed wind has advanced more quickly to commercialization than other technologies such as solar power, fuel cells and wave power with relatively little R&D expenditure. The growth of wind energy, however, is not evenly distributed around the world as shown in Table 1. By the end of 1999, around 70% of the world-wide wind energy capacity was installed in Europe, a further 19% in North America and 9% in Asia and the Pacific [8].

There has been a significant increase in electrical energy demand due to the economical and technological developments over the world [9]. The global economy grew 3.3% per year over the past 30 years and in this period electrical energy demand increased 3.6% [10]. The electrical energy production of the world in 2004 was 17,450 TWh [11] and it is estimated that the world will consume 31,657 TWh in 2030 [12]. According to International Energy Outlook 2009, World energy consumption will increase from 472 quadrillion Btu in 2006 to 552 quadrillion Btu in 2015 and 678 quadrillion Btu in 2030—a total increase of 44% over the projection period 2006–2030 as shown in Fig. 2, Fig. 3. Fossil fuel in the world is limited but most of the electrical energy has been derived from fossil fuel and in the future world will face the fuel crisis [13].

So to tackle the future crisis it is needed to study the electrical energy production with renewable energy such as wind, solar, biomass, hydro, etc. [9]. Among all the renewable energy sources, the greatest increase will be in wind energy production as shown in Fig. 4. This rate reached 20% in Denmark, 6% in Germany for the year 2003 [15], [16].

Global warming and the associated changes in the world climate pattern have been accepted world wide as the gravest threat to humanity in the 21st century. Consequentially the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change conference (UNFCCC) has to establish a legally binding international agreement, whereby all the participating nations commit themselves to tackling the issue of global warming and greenhouse gas emissions and they targeted an average reduction of 5.2% from 1990 levels by the year 2012. Large-scale and global environmental hazards to human health include climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, loss of biodiversity, changes in hydrological systems and the supplies of freshwater, land degradation and stresses on food-producing systems. Air pollution levels of most populated cities in the world are high and continue to climb. Indoor air pollution from burning solid fuels causes a lot of death in Asia and it is about 65% of the world total. The projected GHGs gas emissions and reason behind the health hazardous is shown in Fig. 5, Fig. 6, Fig. 7 [18], [19].

As a result of concerns about climate change, increase the energy consumption rate, international agreements to reduce the GHGs emission and thinking about the availability of wind energy governments worldwide are beginning to establish national goals for the provision of electricity from renewable energy and hence try to set-up the various wind energy policy in various countries [22], [23]. In this paper the existing various wind energy policies are discussed briefly. There are many literatures that discussed mainly about the energy policies of a country or one or two energy policies of a country. However, in this paper authors discussed and compared energy policies for eleven countries around the world. It is expected that it will be very useful for policy makers, energy producing industries, research organizations, Government for many parts of the world.