Analysis of renewable energy incentive policies in Turkey and OECD countries

Although oil, coal and natural gas, which are referred to as fossil energy resources, are still used predominantly, concerns about the shortening of their predicted depletion life, the gases like CO2, NOx, that lead to greenhouse effect cause global warming and air pollution, energy security, access to energy, etc., force economies to use alternative energy sources. Due to the fact that it causes minimal damage to the environment and feeds from an inexhaustible source, renewable energy draws attention as the best alternative to the negativities of fossil fuels. On renewable energy, which is classified as hydraulic, biomass, solar, wind, geothermal and wave energy, especially due to the developments in solar and wind energy technologies. In addition, various incentive policies are implemented by the countries due to the economic, financial and technical obstacles in front of the development of renewable energy. With the increasing interest in renewable energy, studies investigating the effects in the economic field and the effectiveness of the implemented policies have started to increase. The aim of this study is to empirically analyze the effectiveness of renewable energy incentive policies implemented in 36 OECD countries, including Turkey between 2000-2019. In the established econometric model, solar energy, wind energy, bioenergy and total (excluding hydro) renewable energy installed capacity was used as the dependent variable. Explanatory variables; divided into policy variables and control variables. Control variables were also analyzed with a dynamic panel data model. The findings show that policies implemented for the development and deployment of renewable energy are generally effective in increasing renewable energy installed capacity as expected, but some of the policy tools do not have the expected effect and some of them have positive effects in one or more of the solar, wind and bioenergy fields, while others have an opposite effect. According to the findings, it is concluded that the use of separate incentive policy tools for each renewable energy type in a transparent and understandable way will be more effective in achieving the desired targets with incentives.