Costs and Benefits of RES in Europe up to 2030

Abstract:

This Policy Brief follows-up on the DIA-CORE Policy Brief on “Assessing costs and benefits of deploying renewables”, dated 26 September 2014, which highlighted the complexities in making a comprehensive and appropriate assessment of costs and benefits resulting from an increased use of renewable energy sources (RES). It distinguished the different types of effects into system-related effects, distributional effects and macro-economic effects, and looked at the related data requirements, which need to be comprehensive and standardised. This DIA-CORE Policy Brief uses the tools proposed in the previous Policy Brief to estimate the effects on Member States of reaching the EU-wide RES target of 27% of the EU’s energy consumption by 2030. This allows to draw some conclusions on the differentiated impacts across Member States, and the potential implications for an effort sharing approach. It also assesses whether a higher ambition level could be beneficial. The paper also takes into account the implications of national policy frameworks and highlights the importance of reforms to reduce the costs of RES adoption