questions about LCOE

[yu03]

uploads/248/NCSC_LC.rar maybe you mean this kind of file.

[Abdulaziz]

http://www.iea-etsap.org/docs/TIMES-Levelized-Cost.pdf

You can activate this TIMES reporting feature in VEDA-FE via choices on the bottom-right section of the control panel on Case manager.

Dear Amit,
I followed the instructions and I am able to get the LCOE. I was also able to verify some figures and I assume the setup is correct. However, there is something I don't understand and appreciate your tips and guidance.

Many technologies are returning zero LCOE for certain years. I'm wondering why would it show zero for those years? The technologies do have flows and costs.

Thanks,

[AKanudia]

Antti to confirm, but I think LCOE is reported only for those periods where there is a non-zero VAR_NCAP.

[Antti-L]

Amit is right:  The levelized costs (LEC) calculated by TIMES are calculated from the model results, by process vintage. And if you look at the expression for LEC (see http://iea-etsap.org/docs/TIMES-Levelized-Cost.pdf), you can immediately see that if the cumulative discounted output of the main activity is zero, you would get a division by zero.  In other words, LEC is not well-defined (or would be infinite) if the cumulative activity is zero. And the cumulative lifetime activity is inevitably zero for any vintage having a zero VAR_NCAP.

One could, of course, think of forcing at least a small amount of new capacity for all vintages, as a means to ensure that LEC can be calculated for all vintages. However, I would not recommend doing so on a regular basis.

[Abdulaziz]

This is excellent. Thank you very much Amit and Antti.