文章来源：《经济学人》Feb 18th 2023 期 Leaders 栏目 Green energy

Amid the misery of war in Ukraine and the global energy crisis, there is a glimmer of good news. The green transition has speeded up. True, a spike in natural-gas prices fuelled greater demand for coal, the dirtiest of fossil fuels. But it also led consumers to use energy more efficiently. And, more significantly, it spurred investment in renewables around the world. Last year global capital spending on wind and solar assets was greater than investment in new and existing oil and gas wells for the first time. Governments in America and Europe are spending billions on subsidies for clean tech over the next decade; China is offering juicy incentives, too.

在乌克兰战争和全球能源危机的痛苦之中，有一个好消息。绿色转型加快了。诚然，天然气价格的飙升刺激了对煤炭这种污染最严重的化石燃料的更大需求。但它也促使消费者更有效地使用能源。更重要的是，它刺激了世界各地对可再生能源的投资。去年，全球对风能和太阳能资产的投资首次超过了对新建和现有油气井的投资。未来十年，美国和欧洲政府将花费数十亿美元补贴清洁技术; 中国也将提供丰厚的激励措施。

As a happy consequence, the green transition may have accelerated by five to ten years. Yet the remarkable thing is that the transition could have proceeded at a faster pace still. Even as governments have loosened the purse-strings, they have begun to blunt the incentives to invest. Sharpening them again will be vital, as on today’s trajectory the world is unlikely to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, the milestone for limiting temperature rises to 1.5°C above pre-industrial averages by 2100.

令人高兴的结果是，绿色转型可能加快了5到10年。然而，值得注意的是，这种转变本可以以更快的速度进行。即使政府已经放松了钱袋，他们也已经开始削弱投资动机。再次提高投资动力将至关重要，因为按照目前的发展轨迹，世界不太可能在2050年实现净零碳排放，即到2100年将气温上升限制在比工业化前平均水平高1.5°C的里程碑。

One problem is obtaining permits. Endless delays stop firms that want to invest from breaking ground. This has long been an obstacle to new projects in America and Europe; the worrying thing is that some places are going backwards. Denmark is a star in offshore wind. But on February 6th it stopped processing all applications for such projects, after a dawning realisation that it may be in breach of EU law. The gains from cutting red tape are large. The International Energy Agency, an official forecaster, estimates that renewables generation would rise by an extra 25% by 2027 if bureaucratic and financing barriers were removed.

其中一个问题是获得许可。无休止的拖延阻止了想要投资的公司行动。长期以来，这一直是美国和欧洲新项目的障碍; 令人担忧的是，一些地方正在倒退。丹麦是海上风能领域的明星。但在2月6日，在意识到这可能违反欧盟法律后，丹麦停止处理所有此类项目的申请。减少繁文缛节的好处是巨大的。官方预测机构国际能源机构估计，如果消除官僚主义和融资障碍，到2027年可再生能源发电量将再增加25%。

The bigger problem is that some renewables providers are now rethinking their investments altogether, because energy projects are becoming less attractive. Price caps and various taxes, together with rising costs, are putting them off.

更大的问题是，一些可再生能源供应商现在正在重新考虑他们的投资，因为能源项目的吸引力正在下降。价格上限和各种各样的税收，再加上不断上涨的成本，都让他们望而却步。

Between January 2021 and April 2022 logistical hiccups, post-lockdown rebounds and war-induced disruptions together buoyed the prices of everything from shipping to industrial metals, which in turn raised the prices of solar modules and turbines. Higher interest rates have made money dearer—a headache for builders of green plants, which are much hungrier for capital than their fossil-fuel-fired counterparts.

在2021年1月至2022年4月期间，物流问题、封锁后的反弹以及战争引起的中断共同推高了从航运到工业金属的各种商品的价格，这反过来又推高了太阳能组件以及涡轮机的价格。高利率使得资金更加昂贵，这对于绿色发电厂的建造者来说是一个头疼的问题，因为他们比化石燃料发电厂更需要资金。

Such costs would be manageable if they could be passed on. But governments are increasingly micromanaging power markets to keep prices low, or to raise revenue of their own. The EU has imposed a price cap on renewable generators, and many European countries have implemented a windfall tax on their profits. Around the world, auctions for renewables contracts are being designed to keep electricity cheap—so cheap that generators will struggle to make money. That leads them to sell electricity on the spot market instead, which is riskier and less appealing to investors. Some tenders entice developers to compete over how much they are willing to pay to run projects, a system known as “negative bidding”. This may bloat costs yet more.

如果这些成本可以转嫁，那么它们将是可控的。但各国政府正越来越多地对电力市场进行微观管理，以保持低价，或提高自己的收入。欧盟已经对可再生能源发电商设定了价格上限，许多欧洲国家已经对其利润征收暴利税。在世界范围内，可再生能源合同的拍卖旨在保持电力价格低廉，便宜到发电商将很难赚钱。这导致他们转而在现货市场上出售电力，而现货市场风险更大，对投资者的吸引力也更低。一些招标活动诱使开发商竞争他们愿意支付多少钱来运营项目，这种系统被称为“负面投标”。这可能导致成本进一步上升。

The result has been squeezed profits. The four largest Western turbine-makers are losing money. In January Orsted, the world’s largest offshore-wind developer, took a $365m charge on a big American project; on February 8th the renewables arm of Equinor, Norway’s state-owned energy giant, reported a widening loss for the fourth quarter of 2022—despite an 81% jump in revenue compared with the same period in 2021. That week Duke Energy and Dominion Energy, two American firms, also booked charges of $1.3bn and $1.5bn, respectively, on chunks of their wind and solar portfolios.

其结果是利润受到挤压。西方四大涡轮机制造商正在亏损。今年1月，世界最大的海上风能开发商Orsted在美国的一个大型项目上支出了3.65亿美元; 2月8日，挪威国有能源巨头Equinor的可再生能源部门报告称，尽管收入比2021年同期增长了81%，但2022年第四季度的亏损仍在不断扩大。那一周，两家美国公司Duke Energy 和Dominion Energy也分别在其风能和太阳能投资组合中计提了13亿美元和15亿美元的减值支出。

This is clogging up project pipelines. From America to Asia, wind developers are trying to revise their bids or renegotiate financing deals, delaying construction. Some are withdrawing from big tenders, decrying projects as “uninvestible”. In America many solar projects are stalled, and in Europe fewer agreements to buy the power they generate are being signed.

这阻塞了项目“管道”。从美国到亚洲，风能开发商正试图修改他们的投标或重新谈判融资协议，从而推迟了建设。一些公司正在退出大型招标，谴责项目“不可投资”。在美国，许多太阳能项目都停滞不前，而在欧洲，签署购买太阳能发电的协议也越来越少。

Governments are keen to keep power prices low today, but that may be a false economy if it reduces the renewables spending needed for tomorrow. And as more wind and solar capacity is built, developers will probably need to withstand even bigger cost increases: a shortage of copper, say, would push up the prices of cables and wires, and a scarcity of trained workers needed to maintain and operate turbines would boost wages.

政府现在热衷于保持低电价，但如果这减少了未来所需的可再生能源支出，这可能是一种错误的节约。随着越来越多的风能和太阳能发电能力的建立，开发商可能需要承受更大的成本增长: 比如铜的短缺将推高电缆和电线的价格，而维护和操作涡轮机所需的训练有素的工人的短缺将提高工资。

All this means that, if investing is to stay attractive, green power will need to be sold at higher prices than governments would like. If the energy transition is to happen fast, there must not be a race to the bottom.

所有这些都意味着，如果投资要保持吸引力，绿色能源的售价必须高于政府的预期。如果要让能源转型迅速发生，就不能出现逐底竞争。