Bonn Lecture Series: The True Costs of Renewables

Up-to-date insights into the competitiveness trends of renewable power generation costs have be-come an indispensable tool in navigating the rapidly evolving energy landscape. IRENA’s cost data and analysis allow for tailored policy recommendations of sector and market needs and the identification of priority areas for policy implementation. IRENA’s costing analysis leverages a database of more than 15 000 renewable energy projects, coupled with a database on Power Purchasing Agreements of more than 5000 projects. With solar and wind power costs falling, sometimes rapidly, up-to-date current cost data and projections provide the compass and map necessary for Governments to plot a least-cost path for their energy transition. IRENA has analysed solar and wind cost reduction potential and has produced an updated analysis on the onshore wind learning curve and regional competitiveness analysis for solar PV through the PV Parity Indicators analysis framework.

This lecture covered most aspects of IRENA’s work related to costs and shared an outlook on future competitiveness of key renewable energy technologies. It also provided preliminary results of IRENA’s upcoming analysis for a report that examines in detail current and projected costs and performance of battery electricity storage technologies to 2030.

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