Marginal Abatement Cost Curve
Every mitigation measure, ranked by what it costs to cut a tonne
The standard chart of climate economics, native to Power BI. Bar width is abatement potential and bar height is cost per tonne, so the cheapest wins sit on the left and total spend reads as area.
Illustration of the visual's layout.
A marginal abatement cost curve is how climate and energy teams decide what to do first. Measures are sorted cheapest-first, each drawn as a bar whose width is the emissions it can remove and whose height is what that costs per tonne. The result is a staircase where the area of each bar is its total spend, and everything left of the zero line pays for itself.
Getting this chart into a report normally means exporting to a spreadsheet. This visual keeps it in Power BI, cross-filtering with the rest of the model.
Capabilities
Cost against potential
Each measure is drawn with its abatement potential as width and its cost per tCO₂e as height — the defining geometry of a MACC.
Net-saving measures
Measures with a negative cost sit below the zero line, separating the ones that pay for themselves.
Custom markers
Distinguish measure types with circle, square or triangle markers alongside the bars.
Background images
Overlay a roadmap or diagram behind the curve for presentation-ready outputs.
Fields you bind
The data roles this visual exposes in the Power BI field well.
- Category
- Legend
- Potential
- Cost
- Custom Color
- Tooltips
Where it's used
- Climate policy design and NDC analysis
- Corporate net-zero roadmaps and ESG reporting
- Green capital expenditure prioritisation
- Donor-funded climate project screening
Specifications
What the visual supports, and where.
| Power BI Desktop | Supported |
|---|---|
| Power BI Service | Supported |
| Mobile layout | Responsive layout |
| Export | PowerPoint and PDF, plus email subscriptions |
| Certification | Microsoft-certified |
| Languages | English |
| Current version | 1.1.0.0 |
How licensing worksNothing is locked — a license removes the on-visual notice.
- Free to try, in full
- Build, test and demo everything the visual does. No feature is locked or hidden behind a license.
- A license removes the notice
- Unlicensed visuals show a small notification in published reports, to editors and viewers alike. Licensing removes it.
- Licensed per user
- Everyone who edits or views the report needs their own license — in practice, everyone you share it with. Assigned by an admin in the Microsoft 365 admin center.
- 30-day free trial
- Activating a trial removes the notification for 30 days, so you can pilot the visual in a real, shared report.