engleski

Willingness to Pay for "Green" Electricity

On the liberalised power supply market, with an ever growing development and utilization of renewable energy sources, there has been introduced a “differentiated” product, or better, the so called “green” electricity, which is either totally or partially recovered from “green resources”, that is, from renewables. Power supply companies provide consumers the opportunity to purchase “green” electricity against a higher price, in order to level off both higher production costs from the renewables and boost their further development. Based on their free will, consumers may chose to be supplied with “green” energy among any utility company and being charged an additional amount for such products, thus contributing to the further use and the implementation of renewable energy sources in the power supply sector, as well as to consumer satisfaction. This paper aims to establish the features contributing to the consumer willingness to additionally pay for electricity obtained from renewables. Hence, it highlights the reasons behind the buyers' or households' readiness to using “green” electricity, which are found mainly in environmental concerns, altruistic attitudes and personal preferences. It should also be mentioned that consumers prefer electricity deriving from renewable resources, even when they know little about it. Higher education, environmental organisation affiliation and higher income levels are related to the greater willingness to additionally pay for a cleaner energy, since the latter is estimated to curb pollution induced by fossil fuels. Consumers may chose among the most convenient type of renewable resource in the output of “green” power as well as the amount of additional money to pay for the purchase of such energy. Although this paper presents the up-to-date situation in the research carried out by a number of authors, it may be regarded as the basis for further empiric research on the phenomenon of willingness to pay for “green” power in the Republic of Croatia.

willingness to pay, renewable energy sources,

Zbornik indeksiran u EBSCO, Thomson Reuters Web of Science, EconPapers