Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE
Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE

REScost2030: Estimating Costs of Renewable Energies Compared to Conventional Energy Sources up to 2030 and Beyond

Duration: November 2011 - June 2015
Contracting Authority/ Sponsors: Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi), GIZ
Project Partners: Fraunhofer ISI, Prognos, ECN, TU Wien, Comidas

When analyzing the different possible technology pathways towards a low carbon energy system, cost aspects play a crucial role and a good knowledge of total energy system costs of different pathways towards a future low carbon energy system is required. The increased use of RES plays a major role for the achievement of low carbon targets. Although current conversion costs of RES-technologies mainly exceed conversion costs of conventional technologies, expected future cost reductions of renewable energy technologies can help reduce mitigation costs on the long-term.

The Low Carbon Roadmap 2050 of the European Commission indicates a 40 % reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 as cost-effective interim target to achieve the 80 % emission reductions by 2050, whilst numbers for the RES target share by 2030 range around 30%.

In view of the above, Fraunhofer ISE and its partners analyze present and future costs of RES-technologies from a system perspective and compare them to present and future costs of competing technologies. It is the objective of this study to provide insights to total future costs of the energy system for different technology pathways by 2030, focusing on differing degrees of ambition regarding the future RES-development. To do so, the project team realizes scenario runs in order to take into account the actual situation regarding targets, policies and technology costs.

Following topics are particularly observed:

  • Compare past, present and future trends for levelized costs of energy conversion technologies including RES, thermal and nuclear
  • Analyzing future trends of fuel costs (oil, gas, coal, uranium)
  • Analyzing the impact of location-specific resource conditions of solar and wind energy
  • Estimating the expected development of the heating sector and the relevance of RES
  • Modelling the future development of RES in electricity, heat and transport
  • Evaluating additional costs evolving from system integration of a high share of re-newable energy sources in the electricity mix

 

As part of this project, a comprehensive report has been compiled:

Estimating energy system costs of sectoral RES and EE targets in the context of energy and climate targets for 2030 – full report