Abstract
The development of renewable energy source (RES) fits in a global context of increasing attention to climate change and energy security issues. Recent analyses of energy scenarios show the possibility for the global energy system of a transition on the long term towards a model of production and consumption increasingly based on RES. In this chapter, we propose our RES development scenario for the EU in order to achieve RES amount by 2030 at lower costs than those expected by the European Commission. Consistent with economic theory, our results suggest that EU policy makers should follow purely a logic of cost minimization for the EU as a whole, according to which EU countries with lower prices (levelized cost of energy (LCOE)) of production should produce more and vice versa.
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The 2020 climate and energy package, enacted in 2009, consists of a series of measures that mainly concern the 20 % reduction of at least 20 % of GHG emissions resulting from energy consumption in the EU compared to 1990 levels by 2020, the 20 % increase of energy produced from RES by 2020; the 20 % improvement in energy efficiency.
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We compute different LCOE for each technology in each country, since each country is characterized by a different level of solar radiation, wind intensity, and biomass productivity.
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Bigerna, S., Bollino, C., Micheli, S. (2015). EU Scenarios for a Sustainable RES Strategy. In: The Sustainability of Renewable Energy in Europe. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12343-1_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12343-1_5
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