Impact Assessment of the Renewable Energy Policy Scenarios – a Case Study of Latvia

Abstract

Abstract Even though the development of renewable energy technologies has been one of the most discussed and research-rich fields of science, and there are many practical and convincing technologies in the field of renewable energy, the path taken by society to shift from the use of non-renewable energy sources to the use of renewable ones has often been slow and unclear. Renewable energy technologies have undergone many improvements. There are several successful and promising examples where installing renewable energy technologies has paid off financially and improved the environment and quality of life. Nevertheless, fossil fuel still dominates or makes up a large proportion of energy production. The research simulates existing, planned, and potential policies to assess the best way to integrate renewable and local energy resources into the energy system by 2030 and in the long term. Policy analysis is carried out for several possible combinations of support measures to assess if it is possible to achieve the set targets in the National and Climate plan by 2030 and reach Climate neutrality by 2050. Such an approach makes it possible to assess the impact of existing policies that create synergies or undesirable side effects and whether they maximize the return on investment from a socio-economic and environmental point of view. In addition, a risk analysis and impact assessment of the proposed policy scenarios are carried out using multi-criteria analysis.