The BEPE - Break-Even Price of Energy: A financial figure of merit for renewable energy projects

Renewable energy is a fact, with more than 1580 GW installed worldwide growing up to 2350 GW expected for 2018 [1]. Driven by increasing conventional fuels prices and limited reserves, the energy mix for covering the world's demand is rapidly including renewable energy sources, providing carbon free energy as well as energy independence. Some studies claim the costs of renewable energy as one of the most important barriers to accelerate their deployment and reach a complete change in the energy model [2]. In this scenario, the cost of energy becomes one of the most important figures of merit for analyzing renewable energy projects. However, defining the cost of energy as figure of merit is not a trivial issue and most times is being done with different criteria, thus leading to different results difficult to compare. In this paper, a new figure of merit for renewable energy projects is presented alongside the methodology for its calculation. This figure of merit is not based on the cost of energy itself, but on the price at which this energy has to be sold in an energy market to result into a profitable project. The Break-Even Price of Energy, BEPE, is proposed as a financial indicator focused on renewable energy projects developers, and takes into account all the specific aspects of each legal and financial framework. This is of major importance when considering the present renewable energy scenario, with vast influence of local conditioning factors in the cost of energy depending on the project location and technology [3]. Thus, this indicator makes it possible to compare different specific renewable energy projects, and can really help developers to decide amongst different technologies, designs, locations, legal frameworks, etc.