Empirical evidence on discrimination in multi-technology renewable energy auctions in Europe

Auctions are a widely used policy instrument to support the deployment of renewable energies (RE). Yet, their complex design raises concerns about explicitly or implicitly discriminatory effects against particular technologies. Such discriminatory effects would distort fair competition, reduce economic efficiency, and potentially violate European Union law. Several studies analysed discriminatory auction design from a theoretical and simulation perspective but actual empirical evidence is limited. Here, we demonstrate the existence of technology discrimination in European RE auctions empirically. We apply a fractional logit model to empirically measure the impact of various auction design elements on the success of two technologies, solar PV and onshore wind, based on 57 European multi-technology RE auctions from 2011-2021.
Our results confirm the existence of discriminatory effects of several auction design elements in RE auctions, such as installation size restriction, support duration, realisation period, ceiling price, and financial prequalification. The results are stable against various robustness checks such as varying the countries included, the time frame, and the composition of the regions controlled for. Our findings advance the understanding of explicitly and implicitly discriminatory effects against particular technologies in multi-technology auctions and we propose steps to reduce technology discrimination in future multi-technology RE auctions.