July 2013: The International Energy Agency’s Renewable Energy Technology Deployment (IEA-RETD) Implementing Agreement has released four reports that make the business case for renewable energy technologies (RETs), and offer decision and policy makers guidance to manage and support RET deployment.

IEA-RETD Chair Hans Jørgen Koch explained that the reports “confirm the growing consensus that a transformation of the energy system needs to start immediately. Any delay will increase the costs of the necessary transition to a renewable-sourced energy system.”

The first report, ‘RE-COST: Cost and Business Comparisons of Renewable vs. Non-renewable Technologies,’ provides tools to assess the effect of policies and regulations on investments in different electricity generation technologies. The report finds that RETs are rapidly nearing cost-competitiveness with non-RETs in the energy markets of many countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The second report, ‘RENBAR: Overcoming Environmental, Administrative and Socio-economic Barriers to Renewable Energy Technology Deployment,’ contains guidance on institutional solutions for addressing the concerns of citizens and other stakeholders in the deployment of RETs. Institutional solutions covered in the guidebook include stakeholder involvement, participation, compensation, spatial planning, and legal procedures.

The third report, ‘RES-E-NEXT: Next Generation of RES-E Policy Instruments,’ analyzes policies for integrating renewable sources of electricity (RES-E) into the grid, which have implications for grid operations, wholesale and retail power markets, and infrastructure needs. The policy domains assessed in the report are: securing RES-E generation; securing grid infrastructure; and the short- and long-term security of supply.

The fourth report, ‘RE-ASSUME: A Decision Maker’s Guide to Evaluating Energy Scenarios, Modeling, and Assumptions,’ offers policymakers tools and information to critically interpret the key assumptions and methodological issues used in energy scenarios. The report also provides guidance for preparing and commissioning energy scenario analyses. Key findings include the need to make assumptions and accounting frameworks transparent; to understand the limitations of how human behavior is represented; and to use of diverse approaches for addressing uncertainty. [Publication: RE-COST] [Publication: RENBAR] [Publication: RES-E-NEXT] [Publication: RE-ASSUME]