This is the introduction to the NREL report, “Cost and performance data for power generation technologies.”
Black & Veatch contracted with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in 2009 to provide the power-generating technology cost and performance estimates described in this report. These data were synthesized from various sources in late 2009 and early 2010 and therefore reflect the environment and thinking at that time or somewhat earlier, but not of the present day. Many factors drive the cost and price of a given technology.
Mature technologies generally have a smaller band of uncertainty around their costs because supply and demand is more stable and technology variations are fewer. For mature plants, the primary uncertainty is associated with the owner-defined scope that is required to implement the technology and with the site-specific variable costs. These are site-specific items (such as labor rates, indoor versus outdoor plant, water supply, access roads, labor camps, permitting and licensing, or lay-down areas) and owner-specific items (such as sales taxes, financing costs, or legal costs). Mature power-plant costs are generally expected to follow the overall general inflation rate over the long term.
Over the last ten years, there has been doubling in the nominal cost of all power generation technologies and an even steeper increase in coal and nuclear because the price of commodities such as iron, steel, concrete, copper, nickel, zinc, and aluminum have risen at a rate much greater than general inflation. Construction costs peaked in 2009 for all types of new power plants. Even the cost of engineers and constructors has increased faster than general inflation has. With the recent economic recession, there has been a decrease in commodity costs; some degree of leveling off is expected as the United States completes economic recovery.
It is not possible to reasonably forecast whether future commodity prices will increase, decrease, or remain the same. Although the costs in 2009 are much higher than earlier in the decade, for modeling purposes, the costs presented here do not anticipate dramatic increases or decreases in basic commodity prices through 2050. Cost trajectories assumptions are based on technology maturity levels and expected performance improvements due to learning, normal evolutionary development, and deployment incentives.
Black & Veatch does not encourage universal use solely of learning curve effects, which give a cost reduction with each doubling in implementation dependent on an assumed deployment policy. Many factors influence rates of deployment and the resulting cost reduction, and in contrast to learning curves, a linear improvement was modeled to the extent possible.
NREL
http://bv.com/docs/reports-studies/nrel-cost-report.pdf
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