We are pleased to announce the beta release of our first Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering to clients. We call it LCoE-z, a simple but powerful levelized energy cost (LCoE) calculator. You can register and login here.
There are some excellent LCoE calculators available on the web (see, for example. the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s calculator here), but ours has features uniquely suited to your needs in power sector planning and policy analysis. The features include the ability to:
- Calculate LCoEs for multiple plants at once
- Create screening curves for easy comparison of LCoEs at different capacity factors (examples are shown below)
- Save “portfolios” of plants, so you don’t have to re-enter data every time
- Download the cash flows for each plant, so you can double-check the results
Our calculator also differs from other calculators in that users can include, separately, the costs of equity and debt, and the tenor of debt. Other calculators require, instead, that users input a single value for an assumed weighted average cost of capital.
In the next several weeks, we will be rolling out additional features which include the ability to:
- Calculate system-wide LCoEs for an entire portfolio of plants coming into operation at different times
- Download the data behind the graphs, so you can manipulate them further, as needed
- Create additional graphs, including energy cost supply curves (and other suggestions you may have)
- Include environmental or other cost adders
- Include financial charges such as tax, depreciation, and interest during construction
- Customize generation, construction, and depreciation schedules.
We hope you find this simple calculator useful, and very much welcome any feedback you may have on how to improve it.
