The Development Of A Comprehensive Legal Framework For The Promotion Of Offshore Wind Power

There is clearly an urgent need worldwide to increase the share of renewable energy in the overall energy supply as rapidly as possible. With a well-developed and proven feasible technology, offshore wind power has come to the fore as the most promising means of achieving this goal. However, fragmented authorities and procedures may pose tremendous challenges to the development of an integrated legal framework for offshore wind and the complex installation and grid interconnections it requires. This book surveys and analyses the features essential for the development of such a framework, drawing on the experience of ten countries that have such schemes in place – France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Norway, the United States, Australia, China, Korea, and Taiwan. Discussing the impact of technological, economic, spatial, and market issues on the legal framework, eleven key policymakers in their respective countries contribute chapters that together reveal the contours of a strong and sound legal framework that serves to enable and facilitate the efficient application of policy initiatives and subsidies. Topics and issues raised and examined include the ways a sound legal framework addresses the following aspects of offshore wind power development: - license schemes; - construction of turbines; - infrastructure of grid, construction harbor, and vessels; - environmental health and safety regulations; and - loan and finance risk. The contributors show that a carefully planned mix of incentives and supplementary schemes is indispensable. The essays are drawn on the presentations and papers offered at the International Conference on a Comprehensive Legal Framework for the Development of Offshore Wind Power Around the World held in Taiwan in August 2016. As a major new contribution to the debate on the importance of a legal framework for offshore wind power and grid interconnections, this book will prove indispensable to lawyers, policymakers, officials, and academics concerned with the management of sea space to include the wind power necessary to achieve and sustain renewable energy goals.

This incisive book provides a timely and magisterial analysis of offshore wind licensing processes and their regulation from a global perspective. It not only explores the concept of licensing and the governance frameworks and backgrounds in which licensing rules are developed, but also looks at the crucial legal challenges facing the licensing of offshore wind farms that regulators, legislatures, operators, and legal practitioners are likely to encounter.

There are various environmental and legal challenges arising from offshore renewable energy activities which were not foreseen at the time of the negotiation of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). This book explores how UNCLOS has evolved to adapt to these new challenges through legal mechanisms and examines what gaps may remain and how they should be filled. The book highlights the process of normative reinforcement in the regulation of offshore renewable energy activities whilst maintaining the fundamental balance of interests between the coastal State and other States.

Derived from the renowned multi-volume International Encyclopaedia of Laws, this book provides a systematic approach to legislation and legal practice concerning energy resources and production in Taiwan. The book describes the administrative organization, regulatory framework, and relevant case law pertaining to the development, application, and use of such forms of energy as electricity, gas, petroleum, and coal, with attention as needed to the pervasive legal effects of competition law, environmental law, and tax law. A general introduction covers the geography of energy resources, sources and basic principles of energy law, and the relevant governmental institutions. Then follows a detailed description of specific legislation and regulation affecting such factors as documentation, undertakings, facilities, storage, pricing, procurement and sales, transportation, transmission, distribution, and supply of each form of energy. Case law, intergovernmental cooperation agreements, and interactions with environmental, tax, and competition law are explained. Its succinct yet scholarly nature, as well as the practical quality of the information it provides, make this book a valuable resource for energy sector policymakers and energy firm counsel handling cases affecting Taiwan. It will also be welcomed by researchers and academics for its contribution to the study of a complex field that today stands at the foreground of comparative law.

This comprehensive volume of the Elgar Encyclopedia of Environmental Law provides an overview of the major elements of energy law from a global perspective. Based on an in-depth analysis of the energy chain, it offers insight into the impacts of climate change and environmental issues on energy law and the energy sector. This timely reference work highlights the need for modern energy law to consider environmental impacts and promote the use of clean energy sources, whilst also safeguarding a reliable and affordable energy supply.

There are few existential challenges more serious in the twenty first century than energy transition. As current trends in energy production prove unsustainable for the environment, energy security, and economic development, innovation becomes imperative. Yet, with technological challenges, come legal challenges. Zillman, Godden, Paddock, and Roggenkamp assemble a team of experts in their field to debate how the law may have to adapt to changes in the area. What regulatory approach should be used? How do we deal with longer-term investment horizons and so called 'stranded assets' such as coal-fired power stations? And can a form of energy justice be achieved which encompasses human rights, sustainable development goals, and the eradication of energy poverty? With a concept as unwieldy as energy innovation, it is high time for a text tackling changes which are dynamic and diverse across different communities, and which provides a thorough examination of the legal ramifications of the most recent technological changes. This book which be of vital importance to lawyers, policy-makers, economists, and the general reader.

Compares the legal frameworks in Denmark, New Zealand, Norway, and the United States relevant to the development of wind energy.

Challenged by sustainability imperatives, the world faces a transition in how it uses and produces energy. Yet, despite the indisputable interdependence between energy and the environment, law in these two areas has developed separately, with little consideration for how the logic and aims of each might be reconciled. This innovative book addresses this crucial nexus, exploring the role that law must inevitably play as the effects of fossil fuel–induced climate change continue to radically affect every aspect of life on Earth. Focusing on the emerging concept of reflexive regulation, the analysis takes giant steps in paving the way for effective legal engagement in the energy transition process. Issues and topics explored in detail include the following: energy’s distinctive characteristic as an economic activity that works in a chain; relation of physical aspects of energy to its legal and social dimensions; main aspects of regulation, environmental law and the concept of sustainability; specific security of supply challenges faced by the industry; and emergence and worldwide adoption of the environmental impact assessment as a procedural mechanism and its connection with Reflexive Regulation. The author supports her arguments with detailed and critical examination of the regulation theoretical framework and includes citations of case law, rules and regulations from diverse jurisdictions. A case study on the development of the Brazilian electricity sector – an exemplary case, considering the country’s abundance of natural energy resources, industrial efficiency prerogatives, regulatory incentives to ensure investment in supply expansion, and increasing demands in meeting sustainability objectives, all as highlighted by ongoing litigation – illustrates the arguments put forward. This book makes a substantial contribution to developing a framework aimed at linking potential divergent policy objectives in diverse and distinct interdependent fields. It will be welcomed by energy and environmental lawyers and policy makers, as well as by economists, scholars and other professionals concerned with the meaning of law and regulation in relation to energy, the environment and development, and the possible roles law and regulation may play in a pressing scenario of change.

Legislators in a majority of states have recently embarked on novel experiments in alternative energy policy through renewable portfolio standards (RPSs). In many states, RPS policies have been used to spur public and private development of land-based wind power generation facilities. In fact, many states see wind power as an increasingly essential element in their energy portfolios. However, while a few states have investigated the potential of offshore wind projects, or wind farms, none have actually erected wind turbines in their waters. But in many places, the winds of change are blowing. No longer are the continental coasts seen as the only viable sites for offshore wind development. Increasingly, energy policy makers are turning their attention to the Great Lakes. On January 15, 2009, the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (PSCW) released its final report of a yearlong study assessing the potential for offshore wind-power generation in Lakes Michigan and Superior. Despite much anticipation, the study's results were inconclusive, at best. On one hand, the PSCW found that it is “technologically feasible” to generate electricity from wind turbines sited in the middle of Lake Michigan. However, on the other hand the report also conceded that there are a number of “significant technical, economic, environmental, and legal issues to resolve.” This Comment addresses the most significant legal concerns related to the development of offshore wind farms in Lakes Michigan and Superior, particularly whether and how the existing Wisconsin and federal regulatory schemes would accommodate offshore wind farm development. The Comment also discusses lessons that might be learned from two recent European policy initiatives: (1) the European Union's 2009 Renewable Energy Directive, which established a comprehensive renewable energy regulatory system based on principles of extensive coordination and cooperation among various governmental entities, and (2) the United Kingdom's Planning Act 2008, which considerably streamlined the permitting process for substantial national infrastructure projects such as large wind farms, but whose central permitting authority has been typecast as being undemocratic and authoritarian. The Comment identifies opportunities for Wisconsin state legislators to address offshore wind energy in the Great Lakes while simplifying the state's current regulatory scheme, and discusses the potential for federal-state collaboration in efforts to develop the Great Lakes region's renewable energy industries, generally, and offshore wind, specifically.