Future energy prices are difficult to predict and predictions are sometimes politically motivated. Therefore it must be carefully considered which set of data to use.

Here fossil fuel prices are based on the forecast in IEA's World Energy Outlook 2006. You can read more about these prices and other fuel and energy prices by downloading the document 'Economic methodology and data' from the Downloads page.

Below you can change the price assumptions.

The choice of discount rate is of considerable importance to the competitive situation between capital-intensive technologies (like nuclear power, wind power and coal power) and less capital-intensive technologies (like gas power).

More info: Download the document 'Economic methodology and data'  from the Downloads page.

For the present calculations five per cent is used as the default calculation rate.

Below you can alter the discount rate and observe how this changes the competitiveness of energy technologies.

The cost of CO2 emissions (€/MWh) is the price (€ per tonne CO2) times the emission coefficient (tonnes CO2 per GJ fuel) times fuel consumption (GJ fuel per MWh electricity).

Due to uncertainties on the economic consequences of climate change an avoidance cost principle is used to estimate the CO2 price - i.e. an estimate of the costs of reducing the emission of greenhouse gasses.

€ 20 per tonne is used as the CO2 price in 2010 and 2025, as most analysts tend to suggest prices around this level.

More info: Download the document ‘Externality – CO2’ from the Downloads page.

Below you can alter the cost of CO2 and observe how this changes the competitiveness of energy technologies.

Air pollution causes various types of impacts ranging from increased corrosion of buildings over reduced agricultural yield and effects on ecosystems to human health impacts. Analyses show that health impacts make up the largest economic externality.

REcalculator includes the impacts of particles, SOx and NOx on human health.

Experts are divided in two schools of thought: One arguing that the lives of elderly people are almost as valuable as younger people's lives (Value of Statistical Life, VSL), the other asserting that the value should be reduced to reflect that elder people have fewer years left to live (Value of Life Years Lost, VLYL).

More info: Download the document 'Externality - Air pollution' from the Downloads page.

Below you can select between the VSL and VLYL approaches.

Some electricity generating technologies have costs related to the integration into the overall grid. These costs can be divided into the following elements:

• Infrastructure costs. Extra costs for expanding and adjusting the electricity infrastructure in order to feed in electricity production from the technology in question
• Balancing. Costs of handling deviations from planned production.
• Reserves. Extra costs for investments in reserves for handling of outages of power plants or transmission facilities.
• Capacity credit. The cost of some technologies like wind power not being able to produce anything when the electricity system needs it the most.

More info: Download the document ' Externality - System integration' from the Downloads page.

Increasing oil prices reduce economic growth by raising inflation and unemployment and by lowering the value of certain financial assets. The size of this loss has been estimated at app. 0.5% of GDP with a 10% oil price increase.

Increasing the share of renewable energy for electricity generation will have positive impacts on the security of fuel supply, since the impacts of price increases and price fluctuations on imported fuels will be reduced.

The macro-economic benefits of renewables versus oil and gas has been estimated at around 5 EUR/MWh.

More info: Download the document 'Externality - Security of supply' from the Downloads page.

Local benefits is a broad term covering primarily the employment impacts of renewable energy, in particular biomass.

The benefits of biomass electricity generation is temporarily attributed a value of 20 EUR/MWh, based on a preliminary analysis. The analysis will soon be improved and made available at this website.

For more info: Download the document 'Externality - Local benefits' from the Downloads page.