The social profitability of photovoltaics in Germany

Progress in Photovoltaics
Javier López Prol, Karl W Steininger

Abstract

While Germany has led the market in photovoltaic (PV) implementation throughout the last decade, there has been increasing criticism of PV support policies due to their high cost. Although declining, the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) from PV is still above the German wholesale electricity price. However, using LCOE as an evaluation yardstick falls short in at least 2 respects: It neither takes into account integration costs rising with PV penetration (ie, undervaluing its actual cost) nor avoided externalities of replacing conventional for renewable generation (social cost overvaluation). We thus calculate the social profitability of PV in Germany by including not only private costs and benefits but also integration costs to the electricity system and avoided environmental externalities, using the internal rate of return and the profitability index as indicators. Our results show that when these factors are considered, the social profitability of PV in Germany is higher than 10% at the lower bound of the social cost of carbon (150€/tCO2) up to a penetration level of at least 15% and positive up to a penetration level of at least 25%. Results also show the level of private profitability if all externalities were internali...Continue Reading

References

Apr 1, 2016·Nature·Robert M DeConto, David Pollard
May 7, 2016·Science Advances·Surendra Adhikari, Erik R Ivins
Feb 2, 2017·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·William D Nordhaus

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Software Mentioned

Photovoltaic Geographical Information System ( PVGIS )
Ecofys

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