The European Commission’s Energy Roadmap 2050 suggests wind power will remain more expensive than traditional sources of power generation.
It is based on five assumptions from the Commission’s PRIMES energy model and covers different mixes of renewable energy, nuclear power and fossil fuels with carbon capture, and storage and energy efficiency. Overall it suggests that by 2050 wind power will represent 49% of Europe’s electricity generation mix.
But EWEA’s CEO Christian Kjaer said the EC had failed to acknowledge wind’s competitiveness and role by 2050. He said: "Much effort has gone into getting the PRIMES energy model to show renewable energy as more expensive than fossil fuels and nuclear energy.
"There are astounding assumptions in all scenarios, such as oil prices dropping from over $100 per barrel to $70 per barrel in 2050; offshore wind costing the same in 2050 as today; declining nuclear costs; and no gas or carbon-capture infrastructure being needed in the next 40 years.
"Despite these attempts to prefabricate the results, the scenarios confirm that a renewable-energy future comes at no higher energy cost to Europe. A high renewables and energy efficiency scenario would have been the cheapest."
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