Economic aspects of sustainability

The aim of the economic assessment is to evaluate concepts or technologies for their economic benefits on the basis of reference concepts. The following figure shows the product manufacturing costs for the individual forms of renewable energy. More than 60 international studies published after 2015 were evaluated. These studies performed independent and comprehensive calculations to determine the manufacturing costs. The results were normalized to the year 2020, taking inflation and currency conversion into account, and then compared. In addition, corresponding reference lines were inserted for better comparability with the price range for fossil fuels. These can vary widely depending on the state of the art, the site-specific plant concepts and the associated costs for investments, reactants and plant operation, as well as the methodology used to calculate cost. The different assumptions lead to large fluctuations, especially for concepts with a low TRL. The median can serve as an orientation for a weighted value from all cited studies. The most favorable fuel costs often result from pathways that use residual and waste materials. These are usually calculated with very low feedstock prices, however the limited availability of these feedstocks should be taken into account. The cost of pathways that use lignocellulosic feedstocks are often two to four times higher than for the fossil reference. Pathways that use electricity from renewable sources as an energy carrier are usually (much) higher than this value. Only a handful of studies have identified pathways that can compete at current fossil fuel prices. For all options, a subsidy or CO2 price is therefore necessary before they can be established. The graph therefore only provides an indication of how individual options can be classified in terms of their manufacturing costs. In addition to the investments, the costs for providing the biomass or the electricity are usually the determining factors.