World Energy Perspective: Cost of Energy Technologies

The World Energy Council (WEC) and Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) have partnered to conduct a comprehensive comparative study of the costs of electricity production from a wide range of conventional and non-conventional resources. The aim and the unique value proposition of the study is to provide reference costs based on real project data, focusing on the leading renewables and conventional technologies across the regions. The report covers utility-scale wind, solar PV and solar thermal, marine, biomass, hydro and geothermal. The Levelised Cost of Electricity (LCOE) assessment shows that a range of costs of renewable energy technologies is considerably wider than costs of conventional technologies. The most mature renewable energy technologies, such as onshore wind, are today close to reaching parity with conventional fossil fuels, while emerging technologies such as marine tidal and wave are still at the early phases of development.