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PROGRESSIVE ENERGY POLICY
Series Editors: Caroline Kuzemko,
Catherine Mitchell, Andreas Goldthau, Alain Nadaï
and Shunsuke Managi
FEED-IN TARIFFS
IN THE EUROPEAN
UNION
Renewable energy policy, the
internal electricity market and
economic expertise
Series Editors
Caroline Kuzemko
The University of Warwick
Coventry, UK
Catherine Mitchell
University of Exeter
Penryn, UK
Andreas Goldthau
Royal Holloway University of London
Egham, UK
Alain Nadaï
International Research Centre on Environment and
Development (CIRED-CNRS)
Nogent-sur-Marne, France
Shunsuke Managi
Kyushu University
Fukuoka, Japan
Progressive Energy Policy is a new series that seeks to be pivotal in nature
and improve our understanding of the role of energy policy within pro-
cesses of sustainable, secure and equitable energy transformations. The
series brings together authors from a variety of academic disciplines, as
well as geographic locations, to reveal in greater detail the complexities
and possibilities of governing for change in energy systems. Each title in
this series will communicate to academic as well as policymaking audiences
key research findings designed to develop understandings of energy trans-
formations but also about the role of policy in facilitating and supporting
innovative change. Individual titles will often be theoretically informed
but will always be firmly evidence-based seeking to link theory and policy
to outcomes and changing practices. Progressive Energy Policy is focussed
on whole energy systems not stand alone issues; inter-connections within
and between systems; and on analyses that moves beyond description to
evaluate and unpack energy governance systems and decisions.
This book started as an enquiry into the origins of feed-in tariffs. This
interest was raised by a study of solar energy policy in France, carried out
in the context of a PhD thesis that was written between 2010 and 2014 at
the Centre for International Research on Environment and Development
(CIRED). The first version of this account was a chapter of the aforemen-
tioned PhD thesis, which has been revised, extended, and updated. This
work benefitted from financial support from the DIM R2DS Ile-de-France
under Grant no. 2010-13 and from the French National Research Agency
(ANR) under Grant no. 2011-SOIN-003-01 (COLLENER Project). The
study has been presented in several contexts over the years, and we are
indebted to comments from colleagues at CIRED, from members of the
PhD panel, and from discussants in conferences. We would like to thank
in particular Fabian Muniesa, Noortje Marres, Peter Karnøe, Thomas
Reverdy, and Philippe Quirion for helpful insights and suggestions at dif-
ferent stages of our research. All remaining errors of course remain entirely
our own.
v
Contents
6 Conclusion 111
Index 137
vii
List of Abbreviations
ix
List of Tables
xi
CHAPTER 1
This book then tells the story of an instrument of renewable energy pol-
icy, but it also considers this story as a vantage point from which to look into
the wider evolutions, tensions, and frictions at play in European renewable
energy policy. In particular, it gives insights about the objectives of liberalisa-
tion and harmonisation that have been at the heart of the European project
for some decades now, and about the priorities that have guided them in the
case of the electricity sector (Barry 1993; Doganova and Laurent 2016).
The debates that surrounded the evolutions of FITs, and the evolution of
FITs in Member States itself, also interrogate the notion that a balanced,
well-functioning, liberalised market can serve as a device to serve the com-
mon good and solve problems that are not reduced to economic and market
activity (Geiger et al. 2014; Doganova and Laurent 2016). Even if renew-
able energy policy is a small part of the internal electricity market project,
and FITs are only one element of renewable energy policy, we argue that a
close look at FITs can shed light on these issues in several ways.
First, it leads us to look into the Commission’s perspective on liberalisa-
tion and harmonisation: the liberalisation and harmonisation agendas run
through the Commission’s discourses on renewable energy policy. The
ideal model of a smoothly running internal market for electricity largely
shapes the Commission’s conceptions and assessments of RES-E policy
intervention, so in this case we will watch it deploy in relations to a specific
issue. Second, it gives us insight into the actual unfolding of the liberalisa-
tion and harmonisation projects, and into their imperfect realisation. In
our study, we see how actual RES-E policy development in member states
sometimes clashed with the Commission’s ideals and ambitions, and how
such tensions have been resolved.
We look at how these two enactments of European renewable energy
policy—at the EU level and Member States—play out in the design and
management of one particular type of instruments and in the debates it
raised. FITs are a particularly intriguing object in this respect. The
Commission has for a long time considered them to go against the inter-
nal market project; but for a few years, between 2005 and 2011, it dubbed
them as “generally the most efficient and effective support schemes for
promoting renewable energy” (Commission of the European Communities
2008). We thus investigate to what extent different designs and concep-
tion of FITs have contributed to the integration of both RES-E and diverse
national energy policy agendas (partly informed by economic or industrial
interests) within the projected EU internal electricity market, as well as
within the EU’s overarching energy-climate and innovation agendas.
4 B. COINTE AND A. NADAÏ
of which is determined by the regulator; and a fixed period over which the
said tariff is guaranteed, usually reflecting the lifetime of an installation
(Jacobs 2010, p. 287; Couture and Gagnon 2010). They usually involve
mechanisms to compensate for the extra costs induced for utilities, often
in the form of a levy on electricity use.
FITs thus rely on a simple principle: by guaranteeing the financial
viability of RES-E generation and organising its integration in the elec-
tricity system, they provide an “almost risk-free contract” from the per-
spective of renewable energy producers (Mitchell et al. 2011, p. 50).
They are meant to be transitory: they should drive and accelerate the
uptake of still expensive energy technologies, up to the point that these
technologies reach market competitiveness and no longer need support.
They are usually classified as “price-based” instruments, in that they set
a required price for renewable electricity, but not a desired quantity—as
opposed to quota systems such as the US Renewable Portfolio Standards
or the Tradable Green Certificates adopted in some European countries
in the 2000s. The actual development of FITs, however, paints a more
complex picture.
In practice, FITs come in multiple forms, and in diverse degrees of
sophistication. As the IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy stated,
“FITs can be very simple […] or they can be quite complex” (Mitchell et al.
2011, p. 52). Indeed, as each of their features is negotiated politically—
from the definition of what qualifies as electricity from renewable energy
sources to the level of remuneration and the modalities for compensating
utilities, including contract duration and grid-connection procedures—
FITs are shaped by political priorities, country-specific balance of powers in
energy policy, and a range of context-dependent considerations.
FITs find their origin in the late 1970s. In the US, the 1978 Public
Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) introduced an obligation for
electric utilities to purchase the electricity generated by small-scale pro-
ducers, at prices reflecting avoided costs for utilities (Loiter and Norberg-
Bohm 1999; Lesser and Su 2008). In Europe, similar mechanisms first
appeared in Denmark and Germany in 1979, in the form of voluntary
agreements between electric utilities and wind power producers, chiefly to
integrate growing wind power capacities into the electricity system. They
were introduced into German and Danish legislations in the early 1990s
(1991 in Germany, 1992 in Denmark), with Spain following a few years
later. However, they only became a widespread instrument for the support
of renewable electricity in the 2000s.
6 B. COINTE AND A. NADAÏ
(continued)
10 B. COINTE AND A. NADAÏ
1978–1995 5 Ø 4
1996–2000 8 Ø 10
2001–2008 10 3 46
2009–2015 11 7 26
Total 34 10 86
12 B. COINTE AND A. NADAÏ
FITs as Agencements
By incorporating both policy documents and academic texts in our analysis,
we approach the conception and evolutions of FITs as the joint p roduct of
political negotiations and policy implementation, on the one hand, and of
economic reasoning and expertise, on the other. This view reflects a specific
articulation of markets, expertise, and policy-making that is part of the lib-
eralisation agenda, as outlined by Reverdy (2014, p. 56): the liberalisation
of the energy sectors entails a recourse to economic expertise as a source of
information and legitimacy for market regulation, embodied by indepen-
dent regulatory authorities. It also resonates with the way the performativ-
ity tradition in economic sociology conceives of market devices (Callon
et al. 2007; MacKenzie et al. 2008). Indeed, crucial to this tradition is the
commitment not to consider theories about the economy as separated
AGENCING FEED-IN TARIFFS IN THE EUROPEAN UNION 13
In line with this recent literature, this book seeks to unpack the diversity
of ways in which so-called “market-based” instruments can embody and
enact diverse conceptions of economic engagement and diverse political
orderings (e.g. who is responsible and what is relevant for regulating what,
for designing instruments, for setting prices…). To this end, we will follow
evolutions in the relative importance of competition and investment in the
frames of references used to evaluate renewable energy policy instruments,
especially FITs. We will also look into evolutions in the references mobilised
to set feed-in tariffs. Reverdy has shown the importance of politics, regula-
tory frames, and to an extent bricolage in the establishment of energy prices
following the liberalisation of the energy sector (Reverdy 2014). Similarly,
we are interested in the debates around and the changes in the definition of
a fair price for renewable electricity, as it relates to conceptions of what can
constitute a “market basis” for policy and to shifts in political priorities, for
example from market integration to climate change mitigation.
Notes
1. EU Parliamentary documents were not analysed in as much detail because
our objective was to trace the official and general EU discourse on renew-
able energy policy and feed-in tariffs that was constituted as an outcome of
EU processes, rather than to analyse the political processes in which it was
discussed, negotiated, and shaped.
2. Empirical work was carried out as part of a PhD that was defended in 2014,
which is why the bulk of the corpus dates back from before 2013.
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comme forme de régulation politique. Revue Française de Sociologie 58 (3):
359–374.
Barry, Andrew. 1993. The European Community and European government:
Harmonization, mobility and space. Economy and Society 22 (3): 314–326.
———. 2001. Political machines: Governing a technological society. London:
Athlone Press.
Breslau, Daniel. 2013. Designing a market-like entity: Economics in the politics of
market formation. Social Studies of Science 43: 829–851. https://doi.
org/10.1177/0306312713493962.
Çaliskan, Koray, and Michel Callon. 2009. Economization, part 1: Shifting atten-
tion from the economy towards processes of economization. Economy and
Society 38: 369–398. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085140903020580.
AGENCING FEED-IN TARIFFS IN THE EUROPEAN UNION 19
IN the Rue des Bons Enfans, behind the gardens of the Palais
Cardinal, Péron had his lodgings. He had long since outgrown the
proportions of his little room over the clockmaker’s shop; the old
house at the sign of Ste. Geneviève was too small to accommodate
the three grown people and the apprentices, and he had taken up his
quarters near the scene of his daily employment. He had two upper
rooms in a house but a little way from the rear of Archambault’s
pastry shop; his means were limited and his requirements few and
simple, so the apartments were plainly and neatly furnished. He had
left the little room on the Rue de la Ferronnerie untouched; it was to
him full of tender recollections of his childhood, and he knew it was
dear to the motherly heart of good Madame Michel, who looked upon
him almost as her own son.
It was in these rooms on the Rue des Bons Enfans that he made a
discovery which amazed and alarmed him. He had been twenty-four
hours in Paris before he recollected the cardinal’s ring, which he had
hidden in the lining of his coat, and when he went to look for it, to his
surprise, it was not to be found. He remembered that it had escaped
the vigilance of M. de Vesson’s searchers, and he could not account
for the loss. In his anxiety, he cut the lining entirely away from his
coat, but revealed nothing. It was dusk when he made this discovery
of his mishap, and he lighted a taper and kneeled on the floor,
searching with patience and exhaustive scrutiny every corner and
crevice of the room. The furniture was scanty, and the light shone
into the most remote spots, but showed nothing. He was convinced
that the ring was in the coat when he took it off to assume his
uniform, nor could it get out of its own accord. He had dressed
hastily to attend the cardinal to mass at his parish church of St.
Nicholas des Champs, and in his hurry he had forgotten the ring. No
one had entered the rooms in his absence, for the doors were both
secure and the keys in his pocket. Then he recollected the windows.
There were three; the two in the front room overlooked the street and
were inaccessible, but the one in the inner room opened within three
feet of the slanting roof of the adjoining house, which, however,
appeared to be unoccupied. If any one had entered his rooms, it
must have been through that window, but he saw no signs of it. It
was possible for a man to walk along on the roofs of the other
buildings and come down on the roof opposite his quarters, but why
should any one suspect him of carrying the ring, and know where to
find it? If the men of Vesson’s party had seen it, they surely would
not have hesitated to take it. What had become of the circlet? It
could not effect its own escape, that was certain, and he could not
imagine that it had fallen from its place, so securely had he fastened
it. Moreover, he was not alone confronted with anxiety at the loss; he
was liable to be called upon to produce it at any moment by
Richelieu, who had for the time overlooked it, but who never forgot.
His ceaseless vigilance noted all things, small and great, with the
same untiring energy and patience. It was with profound anxiety,
therefore, that Péron continued his search, and it was only when he
was absolutely certain of its fruitlessness that he ceased to look in
every possible spot where the precious ring could have been mislaid.
At last, he was compelled to go on duty again to attend the cardinal
to the Louvre, whither he went like a man in a dream. He was too full
of his own perplexities to observe the gay scenes in the galleries of
the palace, where M. le Grand was at the height of his power and
arrogance, unconscious that Richelieu’s web was already about him.
Père Matthieu had sent from Brussels evidence of M. le Grand’s
correspondence with the Vicomte de Fontrailles, who had already
been selected as the messenger that the conspirators were to send
to Madrid to conclude a treaty in the name of Monsieur. For Péron
had aided in the first steps to expose the plot of Cinq Mars, which
was already partially woven. In the Louvre, too, Péron came face to
face with his old patron, the Prince de Condé, who greeted him
kindly, recalling with a smile the victory over Choin in the tennis court
and saying that monsignor had spoken highly of the musketeer’s
courage and address. The prince’s condescension and his mention
of the cardinal’s commendation suggested to Péron the possibility
that his real station in life was already known among a few, and that
M. de Nançay’s strange liberation had some secret meaning. But all
these thoughts did not allay his anxiety over his loss, which might be
attended with such serious results, the bearer of that ring being able
to gain easy access to the house of the iron cross, and perhaps to
fool even Père Matthieu. Yet a vision rising before him of the stern-
faced, keen-eyed priest afforded him some reassurance, for it would
be difficult indeed to outwit him.
It was midnight when Péron was at last at liberty to return to his
lodgings. He was weary and abstracted, and made his way through
the gardens of the Palais Cardinal to the Rue des Bons Enfans. At
his own door he found a little ragged boy of the street sitting on the
stone step, and thought the child had selected this spot to sleep; but
at his approach the small figure rose. It was too dark for either one of
them to distinguish the features of the other, and only the lantern
which hung above the door revealed the ragged outline of the boy.
He peered through the darkness at Péron as he came up.
“Are you M. de Calvisson?” he asked.
“I am,” replied Péron, surprised at the recognition. “What do you
want of me at this hour, child?”
“I have a letter for you,” he replied, thrusting a note into Péron’s
hands and turning away at once.
“Not so fast,” exclaimed the musketeer, intending to detain the
messenger; but the boy was fleet of foot and had fled away in the
darkness, without pausing to hear what Péron had to say.
Annoyed and amused by the little vagabond’s manner of delivering
missives, Péron had no resource but to enter the house and get a
light by which he could read the letter so strangely sent to him. The
contents startled him more than the manner in which he had
received it. The writing was delicate, like that of a woman, and he
recognized the seal. The note was brief and to the point; it ran:—
“M. de Calvisson,—If you will meet the writer at the stone
bridge by the Cours la Reine, you will receive the ring
which was lately stolen from you. If you come not by nine
o’clock on Thursday morning, you will lose the opportunity
forever—and the ring.
R. de N.”
The seal and the initials were those of Renée de Nançay; yet Péron
was not only perplexed, but doubtful. He had never seen
mademoiselle’s writing, but something in the letter raised his doubts;
he suspected a trap. This was Tuesday; he had therefore one day in
which to endeavor to fathom this mystery, and he resolved to use it.
Of one thing he was no longer uncertain: the ring had been stolen.
As it was already past midnight and he could accomplish nothing for
the next few hours, he wisely spent those in an effort to rest; but he
slept little, for now, in addition to his anxiety in regard to the
cardinal’s ring, was the fresh perplexity of the note, which might and
might not be from mademoiselle. Péron did not misunderstand her;
he knew that what she did was prompted rather by her disgust at the
treachery that she saw about her than from any kindness toward
him, though once or twice he had thought that with all her hauteur
Renée was not wholly indifferent to his fate. He knew that in her
eyes there was a great gulf fixed between them, which not even her
love or his could span. Mademoiselle, the daughter of a marquis,
one of the grand demoiselles of France, could scarcely afford to lose
her heart to the cardinal’s musketeer. Péron, conscious of his own
noble birth, watched the young girl’s proud defiance with a pang at
the thought that the revelation of his rank would but widen the
breach. As for the note, the appointment at the lonely spot was
unlike a woman. On one side of the Cours la Reine, the road to the
king’s hunting-lodge at Versailles divided it from the Seine; on the
other were ditches which ran between the promenade and a barren
plain; and across these ditches was, at one place, a small stone
bridge. A spot more lonely at that hour of the morning could scarcely
be found, and it seemed wholly unsuited to a visit from a young
woman, yet it had the one advantage of being isolated and little
visited by those who would be likely to recognize Mademoiselle de
Nançay. Whichever way Péron regarded the matter, he found it
perplexing, but he never thought of failing to keep the tryst. There
was no risk save to himself, and he was not one to hesitate because
of personal danger. It lent a zest to every adventure, and he would
have lamented its absence.
He devoted some time the following day to a fruitless endeavor to
probe the mystery. It was of course impossible to discover the bearer
of the letter, and he found it equally difficult to obtain any other
information beyond the bare fact that Mademoiselle de Nançay had
been in Paris the previous day, at her father’s house on the Rue St.
Thomas du Louvre. This lent a color of possibility to the incident.
Further than this, Péron was unable to push his investigations, and
at nightfall on Wednesday he knew as little as ever, but he had fully
determined to go to the stone bridge on the following morning, taking
only the precaution to wear his hallecrèt and to go well armed and
prepared for any emergency.
He supped with Madame Michel at the clockmaker’s shop,—a
custom to which he always adhered unless on duty at the Palais
Cardinal,—but he returned early to his rooms on the Rue des Bons
Enfans. He had kept a persistent watch there since the loss of the
ring, having some fancies about the window, which he still suspected
as the way by which his quarters had been entered. It was after
nightfall, and he had lighted his tapers and sat down at his table to
read; for Père Antoine’s early training had cultivated his taste for
books. It was while he was thus quietly engaged that he became
aware of light footsteps on the stairs outside his door, and the rustle
of a woman’s garments. He stopped in surprise and listened, his
eyes upon the door. In a moment he heard a whispered consultation,
and then something brushed against the panels. He said nothing,
waiting to see the sequel or to hear it. Presently there was a timid
knock, followed by the low murmur of voices. He waited no longer,
for his curiosity was fully roused, and undoing the latch he threw
open the door, revealing two cloaked and masked women on the
other side. Without hesitation, the smaller of the two entered the
room, followed by the other, and signed to him to close the door. He
did so in surprise and bewilderment, and was not sure of his
recognition until Mademoiselle de Nançay removed her mask. She
was very pale, but her eyes sparkled with excitement and resolution,
and she scarcely heeded Péron’s salutation.
“M. de Calvisson,” she said, with quiet dignity of manner, “you must
think it strange indeed for me to come here—and in this manner—
but I learned only an hour since of the snare that had been set for
you; that my name had been used for a cruel deception, and I could
not rest until I set it right. Monsieur, you received a note purporting to
come from me and summoning you to keep a tryst at the stone
bridge by the Cours la Reine. That letter was a tissue of falsehood.”
Péron bowed gravely. “Mademoiselle,” he said quietly, “I never
believed that the letter was yours, but I should have kept the
appointment.”
“Mon Dieu!” she cried with sudden emotion, “you would have kept it
to your death—and I should have been the means of it!”
She pressed her hands before her face, shaken by an emotion too
deep to conceal. Péron watched her with a strange confusion of
feeling, his heart beating high with sudden hope.
“Mademoiselle,” he said, too low for any ears but hers, “if my death
would cause you regret, it would be robbed of much bitterness.”
She looked at him with startled eyes, a beautiful blush mounting to
her fair hair, and then she drew back haughtily.
“I came here from a sense of duty, monsieur,” she murmured in a
strange voice. “I could do no less—I know not what you think of me!”
“That you are an angel, mademoiselle,” he replied, “too noble and
too just to let a man’s life be sacrificed by the use of your name.”
She gave him a questioning glance, as though she doubted the
sincerity of his words and feared that he misunderstood her motives.
Her pride was up in arms and she put on her mask, securing it with
trembling fingers.
“There is no more to tell, monsieur,” she said coldly; “if you go to the
Cours la Reine, you will meet your death—and I did not write that
letter—that is all. Come, Ninon, we must away.”
Péron could not delay her, but he picked up his sword.
“Mademoiselle,” he said, “permit me at least to attend you through
the streets.”
She halted at the door, confused; her woman had gone out upon the
stairs, and the two stood face to face.
“You cannot go, monsieur,” she said, with a falter in her voice; “your
attendance upon me would lead to worse trouble for you—and for
me!”
“If it touches you, mademoiselle, I will not stir,” he replied; “otherwise,
I pray you not to deny me the small privilege of attending one who
has thrice saved my life.”
“It would be my peril, Sieur de Calvisson,” she said softly. “Adieu!”
She hesitated on the threshold, her mask hiding her face; then she
held out her hand and he took it in both his.
“Mademoiselle,” he said, very low, “I would cheerfully give my life to
defend yours, and the time may come when I pray you to remember
that I will accept no benefit which shall be to your detriment.”
He thought he saw surprise in her eyes; but he pressed her hand to
his lips, and in a moment she was gone and he heard her light
footfall on the stairs. Flushed with emotion, and with a hundred
conflicting thoughts, he moved to the window to watch her leave the
house; but as he saw her come out on the step below, he heard
some one in the hall, and looking up, saw Ninon on the threshold.
“Mademoiselle dropped her handkerchief, I think,” she said,
pretending to search upon the floor.
Péron took the taper from the table to aid her, and the two stooping
down to look beneath the table came very near together. It was then
that the woman found her opportunity.
“Be wary, monsieur,” she whispered, giving up the pretended search;
“they know who you are—and I do, though mademoiselle does not—
and they mean mischief.”
In a flash the truth burst upon him, the Nançay faction knew whose
son he was.
“Ninon,” he said earnestly, “I pray you not to tell mademoiselle!”
She was at the door again, and she gave him a strange look.
“Do not be a fool, monsieur,” she said with blunt kindness;
“mademoiselle has been betrothed to M. de Bièvre for a
twelvemonth; and her father—ah, M. le Marquis is a devil!”
With these words Ninon hurried from the room and ran down the
stairs after her mistress, leaving Péron standing in the middle of the
room, like a man turned to stone.
CHAPTER XXV
ARCHAMBAULT’S INFORMATION