Green Deal LinkedIn Article

The Green Deal: Follow the Money

Who profits from the energy transition — and who ultimately pays the price?

For decades, European consumers have been encouraged to choose green energy. Wind and solar were presented not merely as alternative sources of electricity, but increasingly as the responsible choice: better for the climate, better for the environment and therefore better for our collective future.

Today, that voluntary choice has evolved into something much larger. Renewable energy has become a central element of international climate policy, European legislation and national energy strategies. Wind turbines and solar parks are no longer simply competing technologies in an ordinary energy market. Governments have deliberately created targets, incentives, subsidy programmes and regulatory frameworks to accelerate their deployment.

That deserves scrutiny. Not because renewable energy should automatically be opposed, but because an energy transition of this magnitude creates an enormous economic system.

And whenever an enormous economic system is created, one question should always be asked:

Follow the money.

From Australia to a Global Energy Transition

My interest was triggered by an interview with a former Australian political adviser who says she worked for seven years for a Liberal Party senator, with renewable energy among the issues she dealt with.

Her assessment of the wind-energy system she encountered is uncompromising. She calls it a “scam”.

It is a provocative word. But rather than dismissing it, I became interested in the financial and legal structure behind her allegations.

Australia introduced the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000, establishing the legislative basis for its renewable-energy certificate system. A Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill followed in 2002, although that particular Bill did not proceed. The original legislation has subsequently been amended repeatedly.

Under the Australian system, accredited renewable power stations can create Large-scale Generation Certificates for eligible renewable electricity. These certificates can be sold and traded, while certain electricity retailers and other liable entities are legally required to acquire and surrender certificates.

The Australian Clean Energy Regulator itself describes these certificates as providing a financial incentive for renewable-energy generation.

In other words, legislation did not merely regulate an existing market. Public policy helped create the economic conditions in which renewable-energy investment could expand.

Australia, however, is only one part of a much larger development.

At COP28 in Dubai in 2023, governments agreed to pursue the global objective of tripling renewable-energy capacity by 2030. The International Energy Agency has translated that ambition into at least 11,000 GW of renewable generation capacity worldwide.

That represents an extraordinary amount of infrastructure and investment. Wind turbines have to be manufactured and installed. Solar parks must be constructed. Land and offshore areas are required. Electricity grids need to be expanded. New cables, substations and connections have to be financed.

The energy transition is therefore not merely an environmental project.

It is one of the largest investment programmes in the world.

The European Green Deal

Europe has translated the global transition into its own legal and political framework. Under EU legislation, renewable energy should account for at least 42.5% of European energy consumption by 2030, with an ambition to reach 45%.

Wind energy plays a major role in achieving that objective. The European Commission has stated that EU wind capacity needs to increase from approximately 204 GW in 2022 to more than 500 GW by 2030.

More than doubling capacity in eight years requires much more than consumers voluntarily deciding that they prefer green electricity. It requires political targets, regulation, investment, public infrastructure and financial mechanisms intended to make projects viable.

And this is where I believe the Green Deal deserves another kind of scrutiny.

Not only: how much CO₂ can we reduce?

But also:

Who earns money from achieving these targets, where does that money come from — and who ultimately pays the price?

Follow the Subsidies

The Netherlands provides a useful example.

Through the SDE++ scheme, the Dutch government financially supports renewable-energy production and other technologies intended to reduce CO₂ emissions. For the 2026 SDE++ round alone, €8 billion has been made available.

The principle behind the scheme is straightforward. Where the cost of producing sustainable energy or reducing emissions exceeds the market value of the product, SDE++ can compensate the so-called unprofitable component, subject to the applicable conditions and limits.

That is a deliberate political instrument designed to make investments possible or attractive where market revenues alone may be insufficient.

There is nothing secret about that, and a subsidy is not inherently objectionable.

But once public money is being used to support private investment, we should be entitled to ask some very ordinary questions.

Who receives the subsidies? Who owns the resulting assets? Who receives the investment returns?

Because subsidy money does not fall from the sky.

It is public money.

And public money ultimately comes from us.

Follow the Energy Bill

There is another flow of money: the energy bill.

For decades, consumers have been encouraged to purchase green electricity from their energy suppliers. What began as an individual and supposedly environmentally responsible choice has gradually become part of an energy system in which wind and solar are being deployed on an unprecedented scale.

Consumers pay their energy suppliers for electricity. They pay network charges. Through taxation, citizens and businesses finance public expenditure.

These are legally and economically different money flows and should not be confused.

But neither should they be examined in isolation if we genuinely want to understand who finances the energy transition.

The Dutch Authority for Consumers and Markets has warned that enormous investment in the electricity grid will be required in the coming decades. Annual electricity-grid costs across all users are expected to rise substantially as the grid is expanded and reinforced.

Those investments may be necessary for the energy system governments have chosen to build.

But necessary does not mean free.

Consumers and businesses ultimately pay for the electricity system.

This leads to an important distinction that is too often lost when we are told how cheap renewable energy has become:

The production cost of electricity at a wind turbine is not the same thing as the total cost of an electricity system built around wind and solar.

If we genuinely want to know what renewable energy costs society, the calculation cannot stop at the price of a megawatt-hour.

We need to see the subsidies, infrastructure, grid reinforcement, balancing and flexibility, financing, long-term liabilities and eventual decommissioning.

Only then are we looking at the complete bill.

When the Turbine Has Reached the End of Its Life

This brings me back to Australia.

One of the most striking aspects of the whistleblower's account concerns landowners who agree to host wind turbines. A farmer may enter a long-term agreement believing he has secured an attractive additional income from his land.

But a wind turbine does not remain commercially useful forever.

The Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner has specifically warned landowners about decommissioning liabilities. Its published guidance has estimated the cost of removing a contemporary wind turbine at approximately A$400,000, potentially rising to A$600,000 or more for larger turbines.

The same authority has estimated that total hosting income received by a landowner over 25 years may amount to approximately A$250,000 to A$750,000 per turbine.

That creates an extraordinary possibility: removing the turbine may ultimately cost as much as — or even more than — the landowner received for hosting it during its entire operational life.

Normally, the project owner should carry that responsibility.

But twenty-five years is a long time.

The farmer who signed the original agreement may have died. His children may have inherited the land. The wind project may have changed hands several times. Companies may have been restructured, acquired or become insolvent. The technology itself may be obsolete.

The turbine, however, is still standing on somebody's land.

Who pays the bill?

That is not an ideological question about whether wind energy is good or bad. It is a question about contractual responsibility, financial security and the allocation of long-term risk.

And it is precisely the kind of question that should be answered before an investment is described as sustainable.

Who Profits — and Who Pays?

This is ultimately what interests me about the Green Deal.

An enormous international market has been created around the energy transition. Wind-farm developers, manufacturers, energy companies, infrastructure companies, banks, investment funds and other investors can participate in that market and generate substantial revenues and returns.

There is nothing inherently wrong with making a profit.

But when governments establish mandatory targets, provide subsidies and other financial support, facilitate investment and require unprecedented expenditure on electricity infrastructure, the public should be able to see how the resulting benefits and costs are distributed.

Which companies receive public support?

Who owns the assets after they have been subsidised?

Who receives the profits throughout their operating life?

Who pays for the infrastructure required to connect them?

Who carries the long-term financial risk?

Who pays for decommissioning?

And, ultimately, who finances the system?

In significant part, the answer is:

We do.

As taxpayers, as energy consumers, as businesses and as users of an electricity network whose enormous investment requirements eventually have to be paid for.

That does not prove that every renewable-energy project is a bad investment. Nor does it mean that every energy company is improperly profiting from the transition.

But it does mean that the word “green” should never end the discussion.

It should begin one.

The Complete Bill

Perhaps after decades of being encouraged to “choose green”, it is time to ask for the complete financial picture behind that choice.

Not merely the number of turbines installed. Not merely the amount of renewable capacity achieved. And not merely the theoretical production cost per megawatt-hour.

Show us the subsidies and incentives.

Show us the ownership structures and private returns.

Show us the infrastructure and grid costs.

Show us the long-term liabilities.

Show us who receives the money.

And show us who ultimately pays the price.

Only then can we properly judge whether the economic architecture of the Green Deal is itself sustainable.

Renewable energy may be green.

Money has no colour.

Follow the money.

Joan Désirée Mulder, LL.M.
JAS – Aware Solutions

More legal research and analysis:
www.jasduurzaamadvies.nl