Estimating Regional Benefits of Renewable Energy Installation Using Willingness to Pay

Abstract

支払意思額を用いた再生可能エネルギー導入の地域便益の推計 弘中雄介，本藤祐樹 The use of renewable energy is expanding year by year thanks to the feed-in-tariff (FIT) scheme in Japan, but the financial burden on electricity consumers (i.e. the FIT surcharge) is correspondingly growing and as a result consumers may become increasingly discontented with the FIT surcharge in the future. The present study aims at examining consumers' acceptance of the financial burden for expanding renewable energy. We estimated how much value consumers find in regional benefits created by renewable energy installed in a town where they were living. We focused on the non-financial regional benefits among a variety of regional benefits, and estimated willingness to pay (WTP) for the non-financial benefits using a contingent valuation method. The results from a questionnaire survey conducted with 1,000 residents in Iida-city, Nagano in 2015 showed that the estimated WTP was 686 yen per month per household. Furthermore, the present study suggested that compared to under the current FIT scheme, they may accept higher financial burden for installing renewable energy when consumers can obtain regional benefits by the installation in a town where they were living.