The development of wind energy in Galicia: public policies, effects on the economy and international comparison

Nowadays energy constitutes a very important concern of policy and public debate. It is justified by the effects of climate change and the national strategies to be self-sufficient in the supply of energy. Renewable energies are the alternative and public policies could play a key role in their development. Furthermore, those energies have potential to contribute to the endogenous development. In this paper we study the development of wind energy in Galicia (the most important renewable energy in terms of contribution to the energy balance) and the role of public policy in promotion of this type of energy. Its development is a recent phenomena but with a growing relevance, because of their impact in the regional economy. For this reason, we analyse the effects of this sector in the economy (employment, manufacturing production, exports, imports...) Moreover, we also compare the Galician model with the Denmark one, because it has a truly known successful integrated framework, in which, all the economical agents collaborate in order to build a competitive and innovated sector with several spill-over effects.