The COVID-19 epidemic led to an unprecedented macroeconomic and energy shock. Given the urgent need for proactive policies both to help the economy recovery and to accelerate clean energy transitions, several countries are interested in combining these policies to create green stimulus programmes. In this context, the experience of the green stimulus programmes implemented in the wake of the 2009 financial crisis provide useful lessons for policy design.
After the financial crisis, the most effective green stimulus programmes focused on scalable, modular technologies by expanding existing investment frameworks and addressing the financial weakness of key actors. However, stimulus funding for large, complex engineering projects tended to produce disappointing results. In some cases the technological maturity or the competitiveness of the industrial value chain was misjudged, deployment targets and policy support were applied too early, and hopes for a manufacturing value chain did not materialise.
Energy efficiency policies were and should remain one of the focus areas of green stimulus programmes. The most successful examples combined ambitious policy funding with standardisation, “plug and play” efficiency options and an appropriate consideration of the availability of skilled labour and industrial capability. The overall policy design needs to pay attention to broad impacts on energy security and social inequality.