The Economic Valuation of Green Electricity

The aim of this book is to analyze the relationship between renewable energy sources and citizens, focusing both on demand and supply. Today, the consequences regarding the use of fossil energy are seen from a different perspective because the issues related to climate change are evident worldwide. Thus, climate change and resource depletion are real problems to be addressed for the welfare of society. Renewable energy sources (RES) are essential to reduce polluting emissions, but they can produce a range of environmental effects which might be detrimental to human activities as attested by the several types of the Nimby effect (“Not In My Back Yard”). This is because infrastructure siting usually offers different pros and cons to stakeholders and the local populations affected. Nevertheless empirical evidence shows that in many countries, society is willing to pay a significant amount to facilitate adoption of renewable technologies. With RES, citizens are called on to play a dual role – not only that of end consumers but often also stakeholders in the local production process. In this book we try to deal with this dual role played by the citizens to evaluate the actual public acceptance of RES. We address a specific and important area of the economic analysis: willingness to pay (WTP) and willingness to accept (WTA). The research evaluates the attitude of citizens towards the end use of green energy by investigating the likelihood of acceptance of a new infrastructures related to RES production. The book, therefore, is not about how to reconcile consumers and citizens, rather it explores the main determinants of peoples' behavior for a better understanding of this phenomenon.?

Paolo Polinori is a Professor of Economics at University of Perugia. His current Teaching Activities are: Economics (Undergraduate) and Regulatory Economics (Graduate) Faculty of Political Science, Energy and Environmental Economics (PhD course). His research interests concern: electricity markets; economic valuation of renewable energy sources; economics and policy transport, and the analysis of the Agri-Food Institutions and Organization. He has coordinated research project units at the national level (Italy) in the fields of Regional Economics, Economic analysis of Energy markets and Efficiency in the public sector. He also participated in European Union research projects in the field of Agri-Food Institutions and Organization. He has published over 40 articles inseveral international journals such as Energy Policy, Journal of Cleaner Production, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Review, The Energy Journal and Journal of Policy Modeling.

Simona Bigerna (Ph.D.) is Professor of Economics at the University of Perugia (Italy), where she teaches International Economics. Since April 2017, she has been Full Professor of Applied Economics. Her current research activity is focused on the electricity markets, economic evaluation of renewable energy sources, transport economics and internationalization of SME’s. She is involved in international research projects. She has published over 40 articles of her work in several international journals such as Energy Policy, Journal of Cleaner Production, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Review, and The Energy Journal.