Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation: Recent Renewable Energy Cost and Performance Parameters

Annex III is intended to become a ‘living document’, which will be updated in the light of new information in order to serve as an input to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). Scientists that are interested in supporting this process are invited to contact the IPCC WG III Technical Support Unit (TSU) (using srren_cost@ipcc-wg3.de) in order to get further information concerning the submission process. Comments and new data input will be considered for inclusion in Volume 3 of the IPCC AR5 according to the procedures of the IPCC review system. This Annex contains recent cost and performance parameter information for currently commercially available renewable power generation technologies (Table A.III.1), heating technologies (Table A.III.2) and bio-fuel production processes (Table A.III.3). It summarizes information that determines the levelized cost of energy or energy carriers supplied by the respective technologies. The input ranges are based on assessments of various studies by authors of the respective technology chapters (Chapters 2 through 7). If not stated otherwise, the data ranges provided here are worldwide aggregates. Data are generally for 2008, but can be as recent as 2009. They represent roughly the mid-80% of values found in the literature, hence, excluding outliers. The availability and quality of different sources of data varies significantly across individual technologies for a variety of reasons. Some expert judgment is therefore required to determine data ranges that are representative of particular classes of technologies and specific periods of time and valid globally.