Strategic Decisions for Green Electricity Marketing: Learning from Past Experiences

Green electricity (GE) has emerged as one of the most interesting instruments for promoting renewable electricity in liberalized markets, at least in theory. Indeed, some experiences have already been carried out, mostly in the U.S. and Europe. However, most of them have been largely unsuccessful. In this chapter, we look at previous surveys and studies carried out on customer response, and provide a review of the most relevant results achieved by GE experiences, in order to learn from them. As a result, we provide what we believe are the key strategic recommendations for green electricity retailers to launch a successful GE program. Although the green electricity market remains a difficult one, several improvements can be achieved by learning from past mistakes and carefully analysing the alternatives and the boundary conditions.