How renewable energy promotion impacts the Portuguese economy?

The promotion of renewable energy sources (RES) has been applied by policy makers to mitigate climate change and boost economic growth and employment. However, these positive impacts of RES deployment are controversial as some studies indicate that such positive effects may not occur. This study contributes to this discussion by investigating the impact of RES expansion on the Portuguese economy. The HYBTEP and HyBGEM hybrid models are used to evaluate the impact of doubling the 2010 share of RES in final energy consumption and electricity production by 2030. Results show that the positive relation between RES promotion, economic growth and employment is not straightforward, revealing in some cases negative effects, which are dependent of the policy instruments and financial mechanisms considered. It should however be underlined that this exercise considers Portugal as independent of international context, namely in terms of international trade prices, which are assumed constant for all the scenarios.