Since 2004, I've also presented numerous workshops and lectures on feed laws, renewable energy feed-in tariffs, and Advanced Renewable Tariffs (ARTs). Many of these presentations can be found on this site under the section on Feed Laws.

Description of Feed-in Tariff Design Workshop

The workshop, led by Paul Gipe, one of North America's foremost authorities on renewable energy feed-in tariffs, will examine the philosophy behind and the design of successful feed-in tariffs. Gipe, who led the campaign for Advanced Renewable Tariffs in Ontario, Canada, delves into the details of the programs in Germany, France, and Spain that have catapulted them to world leadership in renewable energy development.

Some of the topics covered include

• Why feed-in tariffs have been so successful and where
• Price (tariff) setting (Why and how tariffs are determined)
• Tariff (payment) differentiation by technology, size, and application (Why one price for solar, another price for wind, and so on.)
• Contract lengths (Why contracts should be as long as possible.)
• Inflation adjustments (Why contracts should have inflation indexing.)
• Program eligibility (Why the tariffs should be available to all, from homeowner to farmer, from Native Americans to small businesses.)
• The right to connect (Why the statutory right to connect is paramount.)

German farmers are installing 500 MW of solar photovoltaics on their barn rooftops every year. Last year German farmers earned more than $1 billion in revenue from their solar panels alone. Homeowners earn as much as $1.5 billion from their own solar panels and more than one-half of Germany's $40 billion wind turbine fleet is owned by farmers, homeowners, and small businesses. All this development was made possible by Germany's groundbreaking system of Advanced Renewable Tariffs that pay homeowners, farmers, and businesses to produce wind- and solar-generated electricity. Now more than two dozen European countries use a similar program as does Ontario, Canada.