Costs and benefits of the energy transition

This chapter provides a comprehensive approach to assessing costs and benefits for the past and future development of the energy transition in the EU. It briefly outlines the analytical framework to assess the impacts of the energy transition and describes the framework by using RET deployment in general as well as examples. It describes different types of costs and benefits, applies a unified and consistent terminology for the costs and benefits of the energy transition and provides guidance for their assessment. It identifies which types of effects arise in line with the energy transition in general, in different economic sectors, regions or technology fields and how they can be assessed on a regular basis, e.g. life cycle or annual. In addition, it discusses the system boundaries of impact assessments, which impacts can be quantified and expressed in terms of indicators and their potential monetarisation, which information and methodological approach is most suitable to get an appropriate picture of the costs and benefits of the system that are the focus of the analysis and how to critically assess results in terms of indicators and be aware of limitations.