Abstract:
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The modern lifestyle is highly dependent on the electricity consumption, which demand is
expected to continue growing worldwide, especially in those developing areas where the whole
economy is transforming. Until now, most of this electricity demand had been supplied through
the combustion of fossil fuels or nuclear power. But the utilization of these energy sources to
power the human activity is unsustainable because of limitless of the resources and the
hazardous emissions and wastes that they generate. That is why since few decades ago the
wind power became one of the best-positioned renewable energy in terms of costs effectiveness
as a viable alternative to the energetic model based on pollutant fossil fuels. This technology
was firstly developed and implemented on those countries with a traditional environmental
conscientiousness, but as the global warming issue increased new countries were interested to
use wind power as a clean and sustainable energy source. The growing wind power demand of
developing countries has changed in few years the entire industry, because new local
manufacturers have appeared thanks to the government renewable policy, which main objective
is to develop a strong domestic wind power industry capable of lead the world transformation to
a clean energy model.
The thesis defines the most commons renewable energy policies, and focus in the policy used in
China with the aim to analyze if it is promoting or damaging the expansion of wind power use
because of the priority is protect its own domestic wind power industry from international firms.
The conclusions are that those protectionist policies are useful in the early stage of the industry
development but the government must know the exact moment in which these subsidies and
supporting mechanisms become counterproductive. If those are used during a prolonged period,
then companies become dependent on subsidies and don’t act like in free markets where the
innovation is the key to gain and maintain sustainable competitive advantage. |