A broad set of different technologies in the field of electricity generation based on renewable energy sources (RES-E) exist today. Obviously, for a comprehensive investigation of the future development of RES-E in European countries it is of crucial importance to provide a detailed investigation of the country-specific situation, e.g. with respect to the potential of the various RES-E options in general as well as their regional distribution and the corresponding economic aspects.
As an outcome of such an assessment (as undertaken within work package 1 of the project Green-X) the background data regarding potentials & costs for RES-E in EU-15 countries of the toolbox Green-X is presented in the following. In addition, the scenarios on the future development (up to 2020) of RES-E in EU-15 countries are presented. Please note, a detailed description of these projections is also given in the "Final report of the project Green-X" and the "Action plan for deriving dynamic RES-E policies".
Please select a topic:
Background information ...
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Dynamic cost-resource curves - Methodology for model implementation in Green-X |
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Database on potentials and costs for RES-E ...
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General remarks:
Online database in trial stage!!!
The current online database is in a trial stage! A critical feedback is highly welcomed --> please send an email to Gustav Resch (EEG)!
Source of data / knowledge
If not explicitly marked, source of data - especially with respect to realisation potentials and according generation costs for available RES-E options - refers to the project Green-X and the in-depth assessment undertaken within. Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged.
Country coverage
So far, data (on potentials and costs for RES-E as well as on accompanying scenarios) refers to EU-15 countries only! It is intended to extend the country coverage of the Green-X model and database in a follow-up project (EIE-project "OptRES") to EU-25 and selected Candidate States.
Time-horizon of RES-E forecasts
At present the Green-X model and its according background database are designed for deriving scenarios of the future development of RES-E up to the year 2020. As default 2002 acts as start year of the forecasts. Nevertheless, for all data (on potentials and costs for RES-E as well as on accompanying scenarios) as presented in this online database a new common breakdown is set to the end of 2004. This determines the distinction of the overall mid-term potentials for the country-specific available RES-E categories into already installed RES-E plants (i.e. the achieved potentials - up to the end of 2004) and remaining future potentials (i.e. the additional realisable mid-term potentials - for the period 2005 to 2020) and sets the start year for the differing scenarios (based on the applied policy settings) to 2005. Regarding the years 2002-2004 as less data is available at the country and technology levels, the 'forecast' is based on a Green-X model run under the assumption that - at the stage of calculation in August 2004 - currently implemented promotion schemes for RES-E remain in force at least up to the end of 2004.
Calculation of costs for electricity
In the model Green-X the calculation of electricity generation costs for the various generation
options is done by a rather complex mechanism as described later –
internalized within the overall set of modelling procedures. Thereby,
band-specific data (e.g. investment costs, efficiencies, full load-hours,
etc.) is linked to general model parameters like interest rate and pay-back
time. The later parameters depend on a set of user input data like policy
instrument settings, etc. Nevertheless, for a better illustration of the
band-specific set of data presented in the following, marginal electricity
generation costs are exemplarily depicted. Thereby, for long-run marginal
generation costs (as applied for new plants) a default capital recovery
factor is used – based on the following settings:
• Weighted average cost of capital WACC = 6.5%
• Pay-back time PT = 15 years
Cost-data with respect to CHP-plants
In case of Combined Heat and Power (CHP), investments costs, etc. refer to the power plant only – i.e. costs for district heating network are not included. Hence, the assumed heat price in default size of 20 €/MWh must be seen as price according to the defined hand-over point. In this context, this price represents the additional revenue for the power producer due to selling of heat in case of combined heat production, but, of course, does not indicate the final consumer price for heat.
