The German feed-in tariff revisited - An empirical investigation on its distributional effects

Winter Simon, Schlesewsky Lisa


Zusammenfassung
In the context of the German energy transition, the financial burdens associated with subsidies for renewable energies have increased substantially in recent years. These costs are passed on to consumers in the form of the EEG levy as a component of the electricity price. However, some households benefit from owning photovoltaic (PV) systems because they receive the corresponding feed-in tariffs. In order to investigate how the benefits (and burdens) of this subsidization scheme are distributed, we use microdatafrom SOEP for private households during the period of 2010-2017, and we employ three different inequality metrics - the Gini coefficient, theTheil index and the Atkinson index. We conclude that subsidy costs are almost evenly distributed among the population and are therefore regressive. At the same time, feed-in tariffs are increasingly flowing into higher-income households because PV systems are more prevalent in these households. We estimate the overall impact of this subsidization scheme on several measures of (income) inequality at 1.0-2.4 %, most of which is due to the EEG levy. We also find regional distortions in favour of the South and especially at the expense of the East.

Schlüsselwörter
feed-in tariff; EEG; economic inequality; redistribution; tax incidence



Publikationstyp
Forschungsartikel (Zeitschrift)

Begutachtet
Ja

Publikationsstatus
Veröffentlicht

Jahr
2019

Fachzeitschrift
Energy Policy

Band
132

Erste Seite
344

Letzte Seite
356

Sprache
Englisch

ISSN
0301-4215

DOI