LCOE Calculator

By Greg T. Forcherio

Purdue University

Calculate the Levelized Cost of Energy for a facility or system over its lifetime.

Launch Tool

This tool version is unpublished and cannot be run. If you would like to have this version staged, you can put a request through HUB Support.

Archive Version 1.0.2
Published on 23 Jun 2011 All versions

doi:10.4231/D3CC0TT01 cite this

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Abstract

This Levelized Cost of Energy calculator calculates the minimum base cost of energy supplied by a facility or system which must be charged to its suppliants (i.e. break even before profit). This takes into account...
  • capital cost of the facility/system ($/kW)
  • maintenance costs($/kWh)
  • yearly capacity factor (%)
  • fuel costs ($/MMBtu)
  • supply rate (Btu/kWh)
  • discount rate which you plan to sell the energy (%)
  • operational period of the facility or system (years)

The program takes the user input specifications and outputs a number plot for the Levelized Cost of Energy, and Capital Recovery Factor. Then, a single parameter can be changed incrementally (i.e. parameter sweep) and the number plot will graph all simulation results and display them together for LCOE or CRF as a function of that particular variable. This will graphically represent to what extent that swept variable dictates the price of energy. This can be used to not only show what areas can be used to make energy cheaper, but also to show where R&D can be used to optimize cost in the most effective way.

Powered by

Rappture Toolkit
MATLAB, R2010a

Credits

Xufeng Wang (wang159)

Sponsored by

Network for Photovoltaic Technology
Purdue University

References

  • "Simple Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) Calculator Documentation," NREL: Energy Analysis, http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/tech_lcoe_documentation.html (accessed June 16, 2011).

  • Wikipedia contributors, "Capital recovery factor," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Capital_recovery_factor&oldid=317185496 (accessed June 3, 2010).

  • Wikipedia contributors, "Levelised energy cost," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Levelised_energy_cost&soldid=365220846 (accessed June 3, 2010).

  • Walter Short, Daniel J. Packey, and Thomas Holt, A Manual for the Economic Evaluation of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy TechnologiesPDF, NREL/TP-462-5173, March 1995.

    • Cite this work

    Researchers should cite this work as follows:

    • Greg T. Forcherio (2014), "LCOE Calculator," https://nanohub.org/resources/lcoe. (DOI: 10.4231/D3CC0TT01).

      BibTex | EndNote

    Tags

    1. Coal
    2. Energy Cost
    3. Fuel Cost
    4. Hydroelectric energy
    5. LCOE
    6. Levelized Cost of Energy
    7. NCN Group - Energy Conversion and Storage
    8. nuclear energy
    9. photovoltaics (PV)
    10. solar energy
    11. wind energy