Future costs of key low-carbon energy technologies: Harmonization and aggregation of energy technology expert elicitation data

Erin Baker, Valentina Bosetti, Laura Diaz Anadon, Max Henrion and Lara Aleluia Reis

Energy Policy, 2015, vol. 80, issue C, 219-232

Abstract: In this paper we standardize, compare, and aggregate results from thirteen surveys of technology experts, performed over a period of five years using a range of different methodologies, but all aiming at eliciting expert judgment on the future cost of five key energy technologies and how future costs might be influenced by public R&D investments. To enable researchers and policy makers to use the wealth of collective knowledge obtained through these expert elicitations we develop and present a set of assumptions to harmonize them. We also aggregate expert estimates within each study and across studies to facilitate the comparison. The analysis showed that, as expected, technology costs are expected to go down by 2030 with increasing levels of R&D investments, but that there is not a high level of agreement between individual experts or between studies regarding the technology areas that would benefit the most from R&D investments. This indicates that further study of prospective cost data may be useful to further inform R&D investments. We also found that the contributions of additional studies to the variance of costs in one technology area differed by technology area, suggesting that (barring new information about the downsides of particular forms of elicitations) there may be value in not only including a diverse and relatively large group of experts, but also in using different methods to collect estimates.

Keywords: Expert elicitation; Energy technology cost; R&D investments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421514005527
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Future Costs of Key Low-Carbon Energy Technologies: Harmonization and Aggregation of Energy Technology Expert Elicitation Data (2015)
Working Paper: Future Costs of Key Low-Carbon Energy Technologies: Harmonization and Aggregation of Energy Technology Expert Elicitation Data (2015)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:enepol:v:80:y:2015:i:c:p:219-232

DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2014.10.008

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Policy is currently edited by N. France

More articles in Energy Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().