Supplementary Information Potential for Electricity Generation from Renewable Resources and Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE)

Electrical energy can be generated from renewable resources such as solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal, tidal and wave energy. Currently, most of these resources have the potential to meet the worldwide demand of electricity and they contribute to the total generation of electricity with only a small fraction of their actual potential. Hydroelectric power is the most widely used form of renewable energy and developed to about 16 % of its potential. Supplementary figure S1 compares the annual potential and actual annual production of electrical energy from renewable energy resources. Only tidal energy is not capable of providing a significant amount of the worldwide consumption of electrical energy. The disparity between potential and production is most striking for wave energy: While capable of providing enough energy to meet the world demand of electricity, the current amount of electricity generation from waves is negligible. Supplementary Figure S1 | Availability of renewable sources (References are given by superscripted numbers) a) The worldwide potential and production of electrical energy from different renewable sources. The red dashed line marks the world consumption in the year 2009. The total potential of solar energy was calculated by multiplying the average annual solar irradiation1 ( ) with a total landmass 16