History and potential of renewable energydevelopment in New Zealand

Author 

Geoff Kelly

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2011, vol. 15, issue 5, pages 2501-2509

Abstract: Many years before greenhouse gas emission reduction became a major driver for renewable energy development, New Zealand was an early adopter of several alternative energy technologies, particularly hydroelectricity and geothermal energy. It has achieved a level of 60% of total electricity generation from such sources, and is now pursuing a target of 95% of electricity generation from renewable energy, to be achieved in fifteen years. In recent years, however, the development of renewables has lagged that of other countries, particularly in fields such as wind power. The paper reviews the history, current status and potential of the major renewable energy technologies in New Zealand, and suggests what may be current barriers to development. It is seen that the likely major contributors to replacing fossil fuel based energy are likely to be wind power and expanded geothermal energy use, with biomass, marine and solar energy sources likely to play a lesser role. The barriers to development include environmental issues, the opportunity cost of biomass feedstocks, and a policy environment offering less incentive to RE development than is the case in many other countries.

Keywords: Renewable energy Energy policy Environmental issues Development barriers; New Zealand (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations View citations in EconPapers (7) Track citations by RSS feed

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364-0321(11)00070-0
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link:http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:rensus:v:15:y:2011:i:5:p:2501-2509

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 600126/bibliographic

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews is currently edited by L. Kazmerski

More articles in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews from  Elsevier
Series data maintained by Dana Niculescu (repec@elsevier.com).

For further details log on website :
http://econpapers.repec.org/scripts/search.pf?kw=New%20renewable%20energy