Quantifying the cost of red tape in energy transitions
A new study co-authored by researchers in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering quantifies the cost of permitting delays and other forms of red tape on the economic viability of offshore wind farms—one of the most promising technologies for deep decarbonization. Existing models broadly assume that technology can be deployed either overnight (i.e., immediately) or on a fixed timeline; this is for the most part unrealistic.
Published in Environmental Research Letters, this study quantifies the cost of regulatory obligations on the viability of offshore wind projects. It finds that cutting approval timelines by a year can lower costs by approximately 100 million Euros. While the analysis is focused on offshore wind, the methods developed are generalizable to other technologies and can be used by analysts and policy makers to estimate the benefits of improved regulatory policy. The study was led by Dr. Rudolph Santarromana, postdoctoral fellow at the Paul Scherrer Institut in Switzerland, and colleagues at Institute Superior Technico in Portugal and Carnegie Mellon University in the United States.
