It's complex and a calculation that you have to do carefully. To start at the most obvious point: what is the subsidy subsidising? The largest cost item of a co

It's complex and a calculation that you have to do carefully. To start at the most obvious point: what is the subsidy subsidising? The largest cost item of a coal power plant is in building it and the matching infrastructure, then costs continue mainly as salaries of those running the plant and raw material, disposal, repair, ... Setting up wind power plants will necessarily also have the building phase as the highest cost, but then direct running costs will be much lower as there's no raw material and much less personnel. The subsidies that you are looking at currently for coal are essentially spent to avoid the mining operations and coal plants from making a loss. The subsidies for wind power are primarily to finance new turbines to be built (& infrastructure). But you don't actually subsidise the operations. In other words, if you look at current wind subsidies they are mainly to add capacity, if you look at coal subsidies they are to ensure the previously built capacity is used/available. In addition, you have to remember previous subsidies- those of building, renovating, etc the coal mines and plants. If you do count those and calculate them eg per year of lifetime you get much higher amounts of 'real' subsidies, it's just that that money has already been spent. A big downside of it all though is that Germany lost most (all?) of its wind & solar power manufacturers - so it's buying stuff from China, rather than supporting local industry. That is an element the government urgently needs to address ..