Rethinking how to support intermittent renewables

Few intermittent renewable power projects would have been deployed if specific policy instruments had not been implemented. Common policy instruments include the feed-in tariff, the feed-in premium and the quota system. Based on a numerical analysis, this paper shows that these specific policy instruments do not necessarily facilitate the deployment of valuable energy sources because they ignore the cost of intermittency. A valuable intermittent energy source is defined here as a source of energy which requires little financial support and which limits the need for capacity payments in order to ensure the security of supply. Based on insights from the numerical analysis, a new policy instrument is suggested: a multiplicative premium. This type of policy instrument would be a least cost approach to securing a certain quantity of intermittent generation.