Current and future cost and performance data (see above) are sourced from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA's) Annual Energy Outlook 2020 (AEO2020) projections (EIA, 2020). The ATB does not assess any scenarios of cost and performance advances in these technologies beyond what is captured in the AEO2020 Reference scenario. For all the technology types covered here, the sections below note default procedures and assumptions, and the table below notes exceptions to these defaults.
Current and future capital costs are from Table 123 of the AEO2020 Reference scenario (EIA, 2020) and are adjusted to remove the material price index.
O&M costs are from Table 8.2 of the AEO2020 (EIA, 2020); and assumed to be constant over time.
The average capacity factor is the fleet-wide average reported by EIA for 2018 (EIA, 2020). The high capacity factor represents a new plant that would operate as a baseload unit. The high capacity factors represent an upper bound for capacity factor and are based on the EIA values used for their LCOE estimates. The ATB includes the high capacity factor along with the average capacity because new plants would likely be more efficient than existing plants, and therefore might have a higher-than-average capacity factor.
Technology Type | Subtechnology | Notes and Adjustments |
Natural Gas | Combustion turbine (gas-CT) | Capital costs are the average of the advanced and conventional systems as reported by EIA. Assumes a plant size of 171 MW. |
Combined cycles (gas-CC) | Capital costs are average of the advanced and conventional systems as reported by EIA. Assumes a plant size of 750 MW | |
Combined cycles with carbon capture and storage (gas-CC-CCS) | Assumes a plant size of 377 MW. | |
Coal | Ultra-supercritical pulverized (Coal-new)
| Includes a 3% cost of capital adder, consistent with EIA assumptions. Assumes a plant size of 650 MW. |
Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (Coal-IGCC) | n/a | |
Carbon capture and storage (Coal-CCS) | Ultra-supercritical pulverized coal technology fitted with CCS. Both 30% capture and 90% capture options are included for the coal-CCS technology. Assumes a plant size of 650 MW. | |
Advanced Nuclear | AP1000 | Assumes construction on a brownfield site, with a plant size of 2,156 MW. |
Biopower | Dedicated biopower plant (dedicated) | Fuel costs are taken from the Billion Ton Update study (DOE et al., 2011). Regional variations will likely ultimately impact biomass feedstock costs, but these are not included in the ATB. Assumes a plant size of 50 MW. |
Cofired biomass with pulverized coal (CofireOld) | Assumes sulfur dioxide (SO2) scrubbers. Fuel mix of 90% coal and 10% biomass. | |
Cofired biomass with advanced supercritical coal (CofireNew) | Assumes SO2 and nitrogen oxides (NOx) controls. Fuel mix of 90% coal and 10% biomass. |
The following references are specific to this page; for all references in this ATB, see References.
DOE, Langholtz, Matthew H., Perlack, Robert D., Turhollow Jr, Anthony F., Stokes, Bryce, & Brandt, Craig C. (2011). U.S. Billion-Ton Update: Biomass Supply for a Bioenergy and Bioproducts Industry. (No. ORNL/TM-2011/224). Oak Ridge National Laboratory. https://info.ornl.gov/sites/publications/files/Pub31057.pdf
EIA (2020). Annual Energy Outlook 2020 with Projections to 2050. (No. AEO2020). U.S. Energy Information Administration. https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/AEO2020.pdf
Developed with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.