A solar city strategy applied to six municipalities: integrating market, finance, and policy factors for infrastructure‐scale photovoltaic development in Amsterdam, London, Munich, New York, Seoul, and Tokyo

Policy support platforms like the Feed‐in Tariff and the Renewable Portfolio Standard have been very successful in accelerating renewable energy development around the world. Nonetheless, the sustained and consistent transition to a renewable energy future required, e.g., to avoid further climate change, continues to elude societies. To achieve substantial energy transformation, reconsideration of the finance–policy–market interaction is required and is contemplated here by positioning the build‐out of a particular renewable energy technology, photovoltaic ( PV ) energy, as a commitment to infrastructure‐scale development. A so‐called ‘solar city’ strategy is analyzed in which large‐scale deployment of PV throughout the urban fabric essentially constructs an urban renewable energy power plant by utilizing the vast rooftop real estate available in all cities. The article explores a capital market strategy for practical implementation of urban PV in six case study cities—Amsterdam, London, Munich, New York City, Seoul, and Tokyo. This study demonstrates the substantial potential of the solar city concept in each location and outlines a financing strategy to realize the potential. WIREs Energy Environ 2016, 5:68–88. doi: 10.1002/wene.182 This article is categorized under: Photovoltaics > Economics and Policy Solar Heating and Cooling > Systems and Infrastructure Energy and Development > Economics and Policy