Two decades of technological development have led to a strong reduction in the cost to produce power from wind and solar energy. The roughly 80 percent reduction in the feed-in tariff for solar power in Germany witnessed over the past five years demonstrates this fact. But how competitive are wind and solar power today in comparison to other low-carbon technologies? In view of Eu-rope’s ambition to achieve the cost-effective decarbonization of the power sector, we believe this question is highly relevant.
We have therefore asked Prognos AG to compare the current cost of different low-carbon tech-nologies, based on current technology specific support schemes, and taking into full account the reliability of the power system.
The comparison of costs presented here is only a snapshot of the current situation. Policy choices and technological developments will influence future cost trends for all technologies. With this snapshot we hope to contribute to a factbased debate on different policy options.