SUMMARYAn integrated mathematical model constituting of interlinked submodels on technology costs, progress and market penetration has been developed. The model was applied to a few new energy technologies to investigate the economic boundary conditions for a full market breakthrough and corresponding market impact on a 50 years time scale. The model shows that public subsidies amounting to slightly over 220 billion h in total worldwide would be necessary over the next 30-40 years to bring wind and photovoltaics to a cost breakthrough in the market and to reach a 20 and 5% share of all electricity at t ¼ 50 years, respectively. These up-front learning investments would be partly amortized toward the end of the interval as the new technologies become cost competitive but could be fully paid off earlier if CO 2 emission trading schemes emerge even with modest CO 2 price levels. The findings are sensitive to changes in the parameter assumptions used. For example, a 2% uncertainty in the main parameters of the model could lead to a spread of tens of per cents in the future energy impact and subsidy needs, or when related to the above subsidy estimate, 155-325 billion h: This underlines the overall uncertainty in predicting future impacts and resource needs for new energy technologies.