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This study aims to develop the concept of competitive productivity focussing on the interplay between national competitive productivity (NCP) and firm competitive productivity (FCP) based on the following research question: how does the competitive productivity framework explain the influence that government has on public–private procurement programmes?

A case study is conducted on the South African Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme. Data were collected using an exploratory, mixed methods design, starting with national level secondary data on five bid windows between 2011 and 2014, followed by eight in-depth qualitative interviews with industry experts.

The findings indicate that non-financial factors, such as trust (through consistent and transparent government policy) as well as a pragmatic attitude on the part of government, increased competition and ultimately resulted in a productive procurement process.

By understanding what moderating factors influence competitiveness in African procurement programmes, using competitive productivity (CP) as a framework, the research contributes to development of government policy and procurement programmes. Incidentally, there is little doubt that improving infrastructure and in turn a greater percentage of access to electricity leads to increased competitiveness of the nation, firms and individuals, thus enabling companies to grow and operate with more stability.

Originality is demonstrated through the interplay of NCP and FCP, where the constructs of culture, benchmarking and performance were found to have the strongest influence of the six constructs of the CP model.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light to the concept of solar electricity transfer from North Africa to Europe in the frame of Article 9 of the European Renewable Energy Sources (EU-RES) Directive 28/2009/EC, to explain why efforts have not been successful up to now and to provide recommendations on how to proceed.

The authors have compared the “Supergrid” concept that was pursued by some institutions in the past years with the original “TRANS-CSP” concept developed by the German Aerospace Centre in 2006. From this analysis, the authors could identify not only major barriers but also possible ways towards successful implementation.

The authors found that in contrast to the Supergrid approach, the original concept of exporting dispatchable solar power from concentrating solar thermal power stations with thermal energy storage (CSP-TES) via point-to-point high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission directly to European centres of demand could be a resilient business case for Europe–North Africa cooperation, as it provides added value in both regions.

The analysis has been made in the frame of the BETTER project commissioned by the Executive Agency for Competitiveness & Innovation in the frame of the program Intelligent Energy Europe.

One of the major implications found is that due to the time lost in the past years by following a distracted concept, the option of flexible solar power imports from North Africa to Europe is not any more feasible to become part of the 2020 supply scheme.

To make them a viable option for post-2020 renewable energy systems for electricity development in Europe, a key recommendation of the project is to elaborate a detailed feasibility study about concrete CSP-HVDC links urgently.

The analysis presented here is the first to give concrete recommendations for the implementation of such infrastructure.

In the wake of the December 2015 Paris COP21 (Conference of Parties), and India's announced renewable energy commitments, Reliance Power is reviewing its renewable energy investments to arrive at a long term strategy for the role of renewable energy in its power generation portfolio and the financing of renewable projects. The case reviews the Indian government's policies to promote renewable energy; the evolution of the renewable energy sector; and Reliance Power's financing of renewable energy investments. The case requires identification of alternative long term strategies and their financing implications. This case serves as an introduction to renewable energy from the perspective of Reliance Power, a large private power generator of the country. These projects also provide a learning opportunity for Reliance Power to deal with fast evolving renewable technologies.

This study examines various aspects of green energy management operations in India and reports the current state, potential avenues and barriers for green energy management.

This study performs an extensive literature review and covers the several aspects of green energy management operations.

The findings report the current state of various aspects of green energy management operations such as: procurement, manufacturing and distribution and provides the viable business models. It further explains the various facilitators and barriers of green energy management and reports the opportunities and challenges that exist in developing and managing green energy supply chain.

The study is pioneer in providing a comprehensive view of developing and managing green energy operations in India. The study is useful to various organisations on drafting strategies to effectively adopt and manage green energy. The study is also useful in policy formulation for promoting green energy use. This article also set as a base for future researchers working in the area of green energy.

This chapter provides an overview of the current status of renewable energy projects and identifies the key success factors of well-performing public–private partnerships (PPPs). To this end, this study analyses around 1,700 renewable projects on the World Bank’s Private Participation in Renewable Energy (PPRE) database. We then follow an inductive approach for a case review and examine a 5-MW rooftop solar PPP in Gujarat, India, that had been implemented in 2012. In spite of the rapid growth of renewable PPPs, regional disparity is distinct and most PPPs have been undertaken in Latin America and the Caribbean or a few selective countries such as China or South Africa. The case study informs that the successful PPPs may be attributed to such factors as policy coordination in multi-governance systems to attract project investments, the handling of land constraints in a project planning stage, and Green Incentive given to project participants. It offers a valuable insight into the significance of well-designed PPPs for enhanced energy access in developing countries, while accelerating the global transition to renewable-based energy supply to promote sustainable development.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the development and character of climate policy in Latvia with a special emphasis on policy instruments.

In order to implement policies and measures effectively and monitor progress in achieving its mitigation targets, Latvia uses a wide mix of policy instruments, including regulations (e.g. environmental impact assessment procedures, environmental permits and standards, restrictions and prohibitions), economic and fiscal instruments (the natural resources tax, the excise tax for energy resources, user's charges), and voluntary agreements, also raising public awareness.

The combination of the policy instruments with the economic and fiscal instruments support consideration of the needs to support industrial developments and consider national growth interests, but at the same time keeping in line with the leadership in the climate change mitigation and adaptation leadership.

The approaches used in Latvia for climate policy development supports prioritising of climate change issues and put the development of adaptation measures as key issues, at the same time stressing efforts in mitigation.

The character of development of climate policy combining different policy instruments in line with limited availability of resources is analysed.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the quality of collaboration towards Sustainable Energy Innovation (SEI) in Private Finance Initiative (PFI) projects. While the capacity of PFI to encourage collaboration towards innovation is largely advocated by its proponents; however, it remains to be supported by empirical evidence.

Adopting the Complex Product System (CoPS) innovation management model, the authors assess the quality of collaboration at the interface between the innovation superstructure of public sector clients and users, and the innovation infrastructure of private sector designers, contractors and operators. Two interactional elements are examined upon which the quality of collaboration is assessed: openness of communication and alignment of objectives. The authors apply the model to four new-built PFI school projects within the context of the UK government Building Schools for the Future Programme. Semi-structured interviews with total of 50 key stakeholders were used as the primary data collection method.

PFI has introduced a number of problematic issues weakening collaborative efforts towards innovation in the project environment. Particularly, the study underlines the restricting internal contractual relationships within the integrated Project Company and the misalignment of Design-Construction-Operation sustainability objectives. It also highlights ineffective communication with public sector clients and users brought in by the restricted nature of PFI engagement processes as well as the misalignment of public sector-private sector sustainability objectives.

The qualitative nature of the chosen research methodology limits the ability to generalise. The research findings need to be confirmed or rejected by means of quantitative research as representative of all PFI projects.

The study emphasizes the public authority’s role in relation to providing the necessary conditions for the creation of a collaborative environment conducive to SEI in PFI projects.

The study was able to expand the understanding of innovation and collaboration management processes in PFI projects in three respects: First, addressing the limited attention to innovation in PFI research, the study is the first to examine the quality of collaboration in PFI projects towards the implementation SEI. Second, examining the quality of collaboration in PFI projects through the lens of CoPS provides a new understanding of sustainability innovation and strongly indicates that the CoPS model should be expanded to account for the dynamics of innovation processes in the procurement of sustainable CoPS. Third, the explorative nature of the study was useful in generating research hypotheses that can form the basis for future research on SEI in PFI projects.