Welcome to the RECaBS Interactive Renewable Energy Calculator
Often, the benefits of renewable energy are not fully accounted for in energy markets and in energy planning, as the so-called externalities are ignored. Externalities are impacts from the electricity generation activity, which have no financial bearings on the owner of the power plant, but which may cause economic costs or provide benefits for the society.
The REcalculator allows you to include the economic values of various externalities - air emissions, system integration, security of supply, employment - in your calculations. It provides the basis for developing recommendations for international and national policies that could level the playing field for renewables by including externalities in energy prices.
The REcalculator was conceived as an interactive web-based calculation tool. As such, you can do your own comparative analyses of renewable energy technologies and conventional electricity generating technologies. You can also insert your own key parameters to replace the default values.
All economic and technology assumptions are available at the site (click Downloads). Data and documentation rely on internationally respected sources and are fully referenced.
RECaBS (Renewable Energy Costs and Benefits for Society) is a project under the International Energy Agency’s Implementing Agreement on Renewable Energy Technology Deployment.
The aim of RECaBS is to estimate the costs and benefits of electricity from renewable energy sources compared to conventional technologies in a fully documented and transparent way.
For more information, download the background methodology and data document.