Cross-border renewable energy auctions are a topic of growing interest for policymakers, but remain under-analysed. In cross-border auctions, projects located outside of the auction-conducting country can participate and compete for support. There are numerous options for designing cross-border auctions for renewable energy support. This paper examines how opening auctions to projects in other countries influences both the allocative efficiency (i.e., projects with the lowest generation costs are awarded) and the resulting award prices.

A conceptual categorization is developed with three distinct types of cross-border auctions, each with different degrees of openness and implications for auction outcomes. The types are: Joint Auctions, where two countries implement a common auction scheme, open to projects from both countries, mutually opened auctions (“Mutual Auctions”), a scenario in which both countries open their auction schemes, and unilaterally opened auctions (“Unilateral Auctions”), where both countries conduct auctions but only one country opens its support scheme to foreign projects. Furthermore, we evaluate the outcomes of Separate Auctions, in which two countries conduct their auctions independently, while only domestic projects are allowed to participate.

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