Policy makers may have an interest in promoting the development of domestic industry, innovation capacity, industrial cluster creation, or to positively influence domestic labour markets.

Note that clearly favouring domestically manufactured materials may not comply with laws and regulations which aim to ensure a fair competition between local and imported products. For instance, EU member states are obliged to follow EU internal market regulations which severely restrict their possibilities of subsidising or otherwise favouring their own industries over those of other member states. Openly requiring a minimum local content, for instance, is therefore not an option for RES auctions within the EU.

A number of options exist to influence domestic industry development and labour markets through targeted measures outside of auctions, for instance through the creation of innovation clusters and through training programmes. Such measures are not listed here. However, targeted measures outside of auctions may in many cases be more cost-efficient and thus preferable to including them in auctions.

In order to include the promotion of the domestic industry as a secondary objective in your auction, you can implement the following design elements:

1) Pre-qualification criterion regarding job and cluster creation

Only those bidders may participate in the auction who can demonstrate a certain contribution to local job and cluster creation. The degree of detail required can differ, ranging from a simple demonstration that such issues have been considered to the provision of verifiable figures on planned staff and input characteristics.

2) Criterion in auction to favour projects which contribute to job and cluster creation

The auction is held as a multi-criteria auction in which positive effects on local supply chains or a desired labour force structure increases the overall score of a bidder. In order to meaningfully asses this criterion, it must be defined in a way that is measurable and comparable among projects, which can be challenging.