Solar Advisor uses the variables on the Trough System Costs page to calculate the project investment cost and annual operating costs reported in the project cash flow and used to calculate cost metrics reported in the Metrics table.

Because only the Total Installed Cost value affects the cash flow calculations, you can assign capital costs to the different cost categories in whatever way makes sense for your analysis. For example, you could assign the cost of designing the solar field to the solar field cost category or to the engineer-procure-construct category with equivalent results. The categories are provided to help you keep track of the different costs, but do not affect the economic calculations. After assigning costs to the categories, verify that the total installed costs value is what you expect.

Variable values in boxes with white backgrounds are values that you can edit. Boxes with blue backgrounds contain calculated values or values from other pages that Solar Advisor displays for your information.

Note: The cost values in the sample files are intended to illustrate Solar Advisor's use. The cost data are meant to be realistic, but not to represent actual costs for a specific project. Actual costs will vary depending on the market, technology and geographic location of a project. Because of price volatility in solar markets, the cost data in the sample files is likely to be out of date. For more information see the Solar Advisor Model website, https://www.nrel.gov/analysis/sam/cost_data.html.

Direct Capital Costs

A direct capital cost represents an expense for a specific piece of equipment or installation service that applies in year zero of the cash flow.

Note: Because Solar Advisor uses only the Total Installed Cost value in cash flow calculations, how you distribute costs among the different direct capital cost categories does not affect the final results.

Site Improvements ($/m2)

A cost per square meter of solar field area to account for expenses related to site preparation and other equipment not included in the solar field cost category.

Solar Field ($/m2)

A cost per square meter of solar field area to account for expenses related to installation of the solar field, including labor and equipment.

HTF System ($/m2)

A cost per square meter of solar field area to account for expenses related to installation of the heat transfer fluid pumps and piping, including labor and equipment.

Storage ($/kWht)

Cost per thermal megawatt-hour of storage capacity to account for expenses related to installation of the thermal storage system, including equipment and labor.

Fossil Backup ($/kWe)

Cost per electric megawatt of power block nameplate capacity to account for the installation of a fossil backup system, including equipment and labor.

Power Plant ($/kWe)

Cost per electric megawatt of power block nameplate capacity to account for the installation of the power block, including equipment and labor.

Contingency (%)

A percentage of the sum of the site improvements, solar field, HTF system, storage, fossil backup, and power plant costs to account for expected uncertainties in direct cost estimates.

Total Direct Cost ($)

The sum of improvements, solar field, HTF system, storage, fossil backup, power plant costs, and contingency costs.

Indirect Capital Costs

An indirect cost is typically one that cannot be identified with a specific piece of equipment or installation service, and may include all other costs that are built into the price of the system, such as profit, overhead, and shipping costs. Depending on the purpose of your analysis, you may decide to distribute profit among the direct cost categories or include them as a single value in an indirect category.

Note: Because Solar Advisor uses only the total installed cost value in cash flow calculations, how you distribute costs among the different indirect capital cost categories does not affect the final results.

Engineer, Procure, Construct (% and $)

Costs associated with design and construction of the project, calculated as the sum of a percentage of Total Direct Cost and a fixed cost.

Project, Land, Miscellaneous (% and $)

Costs associated with profit, overhead (including marketing), permitting, or shipping, calculated as the sum of a percentage of Total Direct Cost and a fixed cost.

Sales Tax (%)

Percentage of direct costs to which sales tax applies, calculated by multiplying Total Direct Cost by the sales tax rate from the Financials page and the percentage that you specify.

Total Indirect Cost ( $)

The sum of Engineer-Procure-Construct costs, Project-Land-Miscellaneous costs, and sales tax.

Total Installed Cost

The total installed cost is the project's investment cost that applies in year zero of the project cash flow. Solar Advisor uses this value to calculate loan amounts and debt interest payments based on inputs on the Financing page, and to calculate tax credit and incentive payment amounts for incentive based tax credits and incentives defined on the Tax Credit Incentives page and Payment Incentives pages.

Total Installed Cost ($)

The sum of total direct cost and total indirect cost.

Total Installed Cost per Capacity ($/Wdc or $/kW)

Total installed cost divided by the total system rated or nameplate capacity. This value is provided for reference only and not used in cash flow calculations.

Operation and Maintenance Costs

Operation and Maintenance (O&M) costs represent annual expenditures on equipment and services that occur after the system is installed. Solar Advisor allows you to enter O&M costs in three ways: Fixed annual, fixed by capacity, and variable by generation. O&M costs are reported on the project cash flow.

For each O&M cost category, you can specify an annual escalation rate to represent an expected annual increase in O&M cost above the annual inflation rate specified on the Financing page. For an escalation rate of zero, the O&M cost in years two and later is the year one cost adjusted for inflation. For a non-zero escalation rate, the O&M cost in years two and later is the year one cost adjusted for inflation plus escalation.

For expenses such as component replacements that occur in particular years, you can use an annual schedule to assign costs to individual years. See below for details.

Fixed Annual Cost ($/yr)

A fixed annual cost applied to each year in the project cash flow.

Fixed Cost by Capacity ($/kW-yr)

A fixed annual cost proportional to the system's rated or nameplate capacity.

Variable Cost by Generation ($/MWh)

A variable annual cost proportional to the system's total annual electrical output in AC megawatt-hours. The annual energy output depends on either the performance model's calculated first year value and the degradation rate specified on the Annual Performance page, or on an annual schedule of costs, depending on the option chosen.

Fossil Fuel Cost ($/MMBtu)

The cost per million British thermal units for fuel. Solar Advisor uses the conversion factor 1 MWh = 3.413 MMBtu. Applies only to the generic fossil, CSP trough, and CSP tower systems. The photovoltaic and CSP dish models ignore the fuel cost input variable. (When the fossil fill fraction variable on the Thermal Storage page for either of the trough models or the power tower model is greater than zero, the systems consume fuel for backup energy.)

Note. For information on water consumption and other operation and maintenance costs and requirements for concentrating parabolic trough systems, see the Troughnet website: http://www.nrel.gov/csp/troughnet/power_plant_systems.html. For information on operation and maintenance costs for photovoltaic systems, see the California Energy Commission's online Distributed Energy Resource guide http://www.energy.ca.gov/distgen/economics/operation.html.

Solar Advisor allows you to specify any of the four operation and maintenance cost categories as an annual schedule of costs. An annual schedule makes it possible to assign a cost to particular years in the analysis period. Annual schedules can be used to account for component replacement costs and other periodic costs that do not recur on a regular annual basis.  Note that you cannot have both a regularly occurring cost in addition to an annual schedule of costs.  Solar Advisor will use whatever option is valid as indicated by a blue highlight on the “Value” button (regularly occurring) or “Sched” button (annual schedule) to determine which values are used in the model.

For example, to account for component replacement costs, you can specify the fixed annual cost category as an annual schedule, and assign the cost of replacing or rebuilding the component to particular years. For a 30-year project using a component with a seven-year life, you would assign a replacement cost to years seven, 14, and 21. Or, to account for expected improvements in the component's reliability in the future, you could assign component replacement costs in years seven, 17, and 27. After running simulations, you will see the replacement costs in the project cash flow, and Solar Advisor will account for them in the other economic metrics including the levelized cost of energy and net present value.

Note. Solar Advisor does not calculate any residual or salvage value of system components at the end of the analysis period.

The following procedure describes how to define the fixed annual cost category as an annual schedule. You can use the same procedure for any of the other operation and maintenance cost categories.

To assign component replacement costs to particular years:

To delete a value, select it and press the Delete key on your keyboard.

Note. You must type a value for each year. If you delete a value, Solar Advisor will clear the cell, and you must type a number in the cell or Solar Advisor will consider the schedule to be invalid. Type a zero for years with no inverter replacement cost and no annual costs.

Because you must specify an O&M cost category as either an annual cost or annual schedule, to assign both a recurring annual fixed cost and periodic replacement cost, you must type the recurring cost in each year of the annual schedule, and for years with replacement costs, type the sum of the recurring and replacement costs. Note that dollar values in the annual schedule are in nominal or current dollars. Inflation and escalation rates do not apply to values in annual schedules.

The default values on the Trough System Costs page reflect the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's best estimate of representative system costs for the United States in the second quarter of 2009. The values are based on a cost study for 100-MWe reference plant cost performed by the WorleyParsons Group under NREL contract KAXL-9-99205-00, and on conversations with developers and industry insiders. The costs are composite values and  do not represent a specific location or market within the United States.

Note. Always review all of the inputs for your Solar Advisor project to determine whether they are appropriate for your analysis.

Major points of note include:

Table 14. Comparison of Trough System Costs in Solar Advisor versions 3.0 (June 2009) and 2009 (October 2009).

Note. Solar Advisor does not account for the capacity value of storage. Some utilities apply a capacity credit to systems with storage that can affect overall project economics.