Green energy products in the United Kingdom, Germany and Finland

Abstract

In liberalized electricity markets, suppliers are offering several kinds of voluntary green electricity products marketed as environmentally friendly. This paper focuses on the development of these voluntary markets at household level in the UK, Germany and Finland. Since there are already existing renewable energy policies regulating and encouraging the use of renewable energy, it is important to consider whether voluntary products offer real additional benefits above these policies. Problems such as double counting or re-marketing hydropower produced in existing plants are identified. According to our study, the demand varies between countries: in Germany the number of green electricity customers has increased and is also higher than in the UK or Finland. Typically the average additional cost to consumer from buying green electricity product instead of standard electricity product is in the range of 0–5% in all studied countries, although the level of price premium depends on several factors like electricity consumption. Case study of Finland and literature show that the impacts of green energy are not solely environmental. Renewable energy can benefit local public policy.