Brussels, 13/10/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 13 October, the Commission unveiled its very first consolidated dataset - for 2012 - on energy costs and subsidies in electricity generation for all 28 member states.
The findings of the study conducted by the Ecofys institute indicate that, in 2012, the total value of public intervention in energy (excluding transport) in the EU28 were between €120-140 billion. Unsurprisingly, and given the efforts to expand the share of renewable energy in the EU's overall energy consumption, the largest amounts of current public support in 2012 went to renewables, in particular to solar (€14.7 billion) and onshore wind (€10.1 billion), followed by biomass (€8.3 billion) and hydropower (€5.2 billion). Among conventional power generation technologies, coal received the largest amount in current subsidies in 2012 with €10.1 billion, followed by nuclear (€7 billion) and natural gas (about € 5.2 billion). The figures specifying support across technologies do not, however, reflect the free allocation of emission certificates nor tax support for energy consumption, the Commission states. Including these factors would reduce the gap between support for renewables and other power generation technologies. The study also discusses the order of magnitude of historical interventions, which are considerable for coal and nuclear. Further work is however needed to arrive at more solid estimates of historical subsidies.
The study also presents figures on the cost competitiveness of the different power generation technologies. The estimated ranges reflect costs of new power generation without public intervention (levelised costs). Costs for producing one MWh of electricity from coal are in a range around €75. Electricity from onshore wind is generated at only marginally higher costs. Costs for power from nuclear and natural gas are in comparable ranges around €100/MWh. Solar power costs have fallen considerably since 2008 to about €100-115/MWh depending on the size of installations.
In addition, it presents estimates on external costs across power generation technologies. These are costs that are not reflected in market prices, such as costs of environmental and health impacts and the impact of climate change. The methods for quantifying external costs come with a high degree of uncertainty, and the report only aims to identify orders of magnitude for external costs. It puts the figure of external costs of the EU's energy mix in 2012 at between €150 billion and €310 billion. (EH)