Cost, financing, and subsidy parameters

These parameters define costs for technologies, scenario-wide financial assumptions, and subsidies. Costs for storage are described in Storage parameters; costs for transmission lines are part of the transmission line dimension.

Capital cost

Cost to build a unit of capacity for the specified technology.

Scenario database

Table: CapitalCost

Depreciation method

Method for calculating the salvage value of technology, storage, and transmission line capacity existing at the end of the modeling period.

• 1: Sinking fund depreciation (assuming the applicable discount rate is not 0; if it is, straight line depreciation is used instead)

• 2: Straight line depreciation

Scenario database

Table: DepreciationMethod

Discount rate

Rate used to discount costs in a region.

Scenario database

Table: DiscountRate

Fixed cost

Fixed operation and maintenance costs for a technology.

Scenario database

Table: FixedCost

Interest rate technology

Interest rate used to calculate financing costs for endogenously built technology capacity.

Scenario database

Table: InterestRateTechnology

Maximum subsidies per technology

Maximum subsidies that can be disbursed for a technology in a region and year. Subsidies can be applied to new endogenously built technology capacity if the TechnologySubsidy parameter is defined. They function like a discount on capital costs, lowering capital investment and financing requirements.

Scenario database

Table: MaxSubsidyPerTechnology

Maximum subsidies per technology group

Maximum subsidies that can be disbursed for a technology group in a region and year. Subsidies can be applied to new endogenously built technology capacity if the TechnologySubsidy parameter is defined. They function like a discount on capital costs, lowering capital investment and financing requirements.

Scenario database

Table: MaxSubsidyPerTechnologyGroup

Maximum subsidies per region

Maximum technology subsidies that can be disbursed in a region and year. Subsidies can be applied to new endogenously built technology capacity if the TechnologySubsidy parameter is defined. They function like a discount on capital costs, lowering capital investment and financing requirements.

Scenario database

Table: MaxSubsidyPerRegion

Technology subsidy

Maximum permissible subsidy amount per unit of endogenously built technology capacity. Subsidies function like a discount on technology capital costs, lowering capital investment and financing requirements.

Scenario database

Table: TechnologySubsidy

Variable cost

Running cost for a technology, defined in terms of cost per unit of nominal energy produced. Nominal energy is calculated by multiplying dispatched capacity by the length of time it is dispatched.

Scenario database

Table: VariableCost