Supply of renewable energy sources and the cost of EU climate policy

The model set-up makes it possible to directly use available estimates of costs and capacity potentials for renewable energy sources for calibration. In our base case simulation, the costs of EU climate policy with the renewables target are 6% higher than those of a policy without this target.

As information on the supply of renewable energy is scarce and uncertain, we perform an extensive sensitivity analysis with respect to the level and steepness of the supply curves for wind energy and biomass. In the range we explore, the excess costs vary from zero (when the target is not binding) to 23% (when the cost progression and the initial cost disadvantage for renewables are doubled).