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Regional CAPEX Parameter Variations and Adjustments

For most generation technologies, regional cost multipliers are applied to reflect variations in installation costs across the United States as described in the ReEDS model documentation (Eurek et al., 2016) and shown with updated data here. These regional multipliers are applied to the overnight capital cost of the associated technology. The regional multipliers are technology-specific and are usually derived from EIA (EIA, 2016), which is the source of capital cost assumptions for the NEMS model. While the regional costs presented in EIA (EIA, 2016) are based on particular cities, the regional multipliers for ReEDS are calculated by interpolating between these cities and using the average value over the ReEDS regions for each technology. For land-based wind technology an additional multiplier of up to 20% is applied to areas in the Northeast based on market data observations ((Wiser et al., 2016), (DOE & NREL, 2015)). A similar approach was developed for commercial and residential PV technologies by Fu et al. (2016) and is applied in dGen. The regional multipliers as implemented in ReEDS and dGen are shown in the following figure.

Cost Multiplier Map: Land-Based Wind
Cost Multiplier Map: Land-Based Wind (No 20%)
Cost Multiplier Map: Offshore Wind
Cost Multiplier Map: PV
Cost Multiplier Map: Advanced CC
Cost Multiplier Map: Advanced CT
Cost Multiplier Map: Coal (with CCS)
Cost Multiplier Map: Coal (no CCS)
Cost Multiplier Map: Conventional CC
Cost Multiplier Map: Natural Gas CC
Cost Multiplier Map: Biomass
Cost Multiplier Map: Nuclear
Cost Multiplier Map: Battery Storage

References

The following references are specific to this page; for all references in this ATB, see References.

DOE, & NREL. (2015). Wind Vision: A New Era for Wind Power in the United States (Technical Report No. DOE/GO-102015-4557). Retrieved from U.S. Department of Energy website: https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy15osti/63197-2.pdf

EIA. (2016b). Capital Cost Estimates for Utility Scale Electricity Generating Plants. Retrieved from U.S. Energy Information Administration website: https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost/pdf/capcost_assumption.pdf

Eurek, K., Cole, W., Bielen, D., Blair, N., Cohen, S., Frew, B., … Steinberg, D. (2016). Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) Model Documentation: Version 2016 (Technical Report No. NREL/TP-6A20-67067). https://doi.org/10.2172/1332909

Fu, R., Chung, D., Lowder, T., Feldman, D., Ardani, K., & Margolis, R. (2016). U.S. Solar Photovoltaic System Cost Benchmark: Q1 2016 (No. NREL/PR-6A20-67142). https://doi.org/10.7799/1325002

Wiser, R., Bolinger, M., Barbose, G., Darghouth, N., Hoen, B., Mills, A., … Tian, T. (2016). 2015 Wind Technologies Market Report (No. DOE/GO-102016-4885). https://doi.org/10.2172/1312474