Installation Costs are costs associated with installing the system, and include equipment, labor, engineering, permitting, and any other costs that apply in Year 0 of the project cash flow. Some costs, such as debt-related and sales tax costs are specified on the Financial Parameters page.

SAM uses the variables on the Installation Costs page to calculate the project investment cost.

Recurring costs that apply in Years 1 and later of the project cash flow are on the Operating Costs page.

Variable values in boxes with white backgrounds are values that you can edit. Boxes with blue backgrounds contain calculated values or values from other pages that SAM displays for your information.

SAM provides the categories under Direct Capital Costs and Indirect Capital Costs for your convenience to help keep track of project installation costs. Only the Total Installed Cost value affects the cash flow calculations, so you can assign capital costs to the different cost categories in whatever way makes sense for your analysis. For example, you could assign the cost of designing the array to the module cost category or to the engineering category with equivalent results. After you assign costs to the categories, you should verify that the total installed cost value is what you expect.

CSP Installation Costs Notes.
 
The default cost values that appear when you create a file or case are intended to illustrate SAM's use. The cost data are meant to be realistic, but not to represent actual costs for a specific project. For more information and a list of online resources for cost data, see the SAM website.
 
The direct capital costs in $/kWe are in kilowatts of gross power block capacity rather than nameplate capacity because the size and cost of the power block is determined by the gross capacity, not the net capacity. The total installed cost in $/kWe (actually overnight installed cost because it does not include financing during construction costs, which are accounted for on the Financial Parameters page) is in kilowatts of nameplate capacity, because that is what is delivered to the grid and is consistent with how costs are reported for utility generation technologies. The indirect costs in $/Wac are in Watts of nameplate power block capacity because those costs that use the entire plant as the basis, not just the power block.
 
The Installation Costs page is only available for cases with a cash-flow-based financial mode. It is not available with the No Financial Model option or the LCOE Calculator financial model.

Direct Capital Costs

A direct capital cost represents an expense for a specific piece of equipment or installation service that applies in year zero of the cash flow.

Note: Because SAM uses only the total installed cost value in cash flow calculations, how you distribute costs among the different direct capital cost categories does not affect the final results.

Site Improvements, $/m2

A cost per square meter of solar field area to account for expenses related to site preparation and other equipment not included in the solar field cost category.

Solar Field, $/m2

A cost per square meter of solar field area to account for expenses related to installation of the solar field, including labor and equipment.

HTF System, $/m2

A cost per square meter of solar field area to account for expenses related to installation of the heat transfer fluid pumps and piping, including labor and equipment.

Storage, $/kWht

Cost per thermal megawatt-hour of storage capacity to account for expenses related to installation of the thermal storage system, including equipment and labor.

Fossil Backup, $/kWe

For CSP Systems only. Cost per electric megawatt of power block gross capacity to account for the installation of a fossil backup system, including equipment and labor.

Note. In versions of SAM released after February 2020, fossil backup is not available for the Physical Trough model because it was not incorporated into the new dispatch controller logic at the time of the software release, so the Fossil Backup cost should be zero. If you want to use fossil backup, use version SAM 2018.11.11, available on the SAM website Download page.

Power Plant, $/kWe

For CSP Systems only. Cost per electric megawatt of power block gross capacity to account for the installation of the power block, including equipment and labor.

Heat Sink, $/kWht

For IPH systems only. Cost per thermal kilowatt-hour of heat sink capacity for expenses related to installation of the heat sink, including labor and equipment.

Balance of Plant, $/kWe for CSP, $/kWt for IPH

Cost per electric megawatt of power block gross capacity or thermal heat sink capacity to account for additional costs.

Contingency, %

A percentage of the sum of the site improvements, solar field, HTF system, storage, fossil backup, and power plant costs to account for expected uncertainties in direct cost estimates.

Total Direct Cost, $

The sum of improvements, solar field, HTF system, storage, fossil backup, power plant costs, and contingency costs.

Indirect Capital Costs

An indirect cost is typically one that cannot be identified with a specific piece of equipment or installation service.

Note: Because SAM uses only the total installed cost value in cash flow calculations, how you distribute costs among the different indirect capital cost categories does not affect the final results.

Total Land Area

The total land area required for the project, from the Solar Field or Heliostat Field page.

Nameplate

The system's nameplate capacity from the Power Block or Power Cycle page.

EPC and Owner Cost

EPC (engineer-procure-construct) and owner costs are associated with the design and construction of the project. SAM calculates the total cost as the sum of the Non-fixed Cost and Fixed Cost.

Typical costs that may be appropriate to include in the EPC and Owner category are: Permitting, royalty payments, consulting, management or legal fees, geotechnical and environmental surveys, interconnection costs, spare parts inventories, commissioning costs, and the owner's engineering and project development activities.

Total Land Costs

Costs associated with land purchases, which SAM calculates as the sum of a non-fixed cost and a fixed cost. Use the Land category described below for land costs, and inputs on the Financial Parameters page for financing costs.

SAM calculates the total EPC and Owner Costs and Total Land Costs by adding the four costs that you can specify using different units.

$/acre

A cost in dollars per total land area in acres.

% of direct cost

A cost as a percentage of Total Direct Cost under Direct Capital Cost.

$/Wac

A cost in dollars per AC Watt of nameplate capacity.

$

A fixed dollar amount

Total Indirect Cost ($)

The sum of engineer-procure-construct costs, project-land-miscellaneous costs.

Sales Tax

Sales tax basis, %

The percentage of total direct cost used to the calculate sales tax amount.

SAM calculates the total sales tax amount by multiplying the sales tax rate from the Financial Parameters page by the sales tax basis on the Installation Costs page:

Total Sales Tax ($) = Sales Tax Rate (%) × Sales Tax Basis (%) × Total Direct Cost ($)

For an explanation of the effect of sales tax on income tax, see Sales Tax on the Financial Parameters topic for the financial model you are using (Residential, Commercial, Single Owner, etc.)

Total Installed Cost

The total installed cost is the sum of all of the direct and indirect capital costs and sales tax. SAM uses this value to calculate the project's net capital cost, which is the total installed cost less any cash incentives on the Incentives page and plus any additional financing costs from Financial Parameters page.

Total installed cost, $

The sum of total direct cost and total indirect cost.

Total installed cost per capacity

Total installed cost divided by the total system rated or nameplate capacity. This value is provided for reference only. SAM does not use it in cash flow calculations.

The units depend on the type of system: For photovoltaic systems: $/Wdc, for standalone battery systems: $/Wac, for other systems: $/kWac.

About the CSP Default Cost Assumptions

The default values the Installation Costs and Operating Costs pages for the CSP models reflect the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's best estimate of representative costs for CSP systems in the United States at the time of the release of the current version of SAM. The values are based on cost studies undertaken by NREL, review of published literature, and conversations with developers and industry insiders. Costs are reviewed prior to each new SAM release.

Note. Always review all of the inputs for your SAM project to determine whether they are appropriate for your analysis.

The parabolic trough and power tower default cost values were largely developed from the following studies:

Kurup, P.; Turchi, C. S.  (2015). “Parabolic Trough Collector Cost Update for the System Advisor Model (SAM),” NREL/TP-6A20-65228, 2015. (PDF 2.1 MB)

Turchi, C. S.;  Heath, G. A. (2013). “Molten Salt Power Tower Cost Model for the System Advisor Model (SAM),” NREL/TP-5500-57625, 2013. (PDF 2.5 MB)

Kolb, G. J.; Ho, C. K. (2011), T. R. Mancini, and J. A. Gary, "Power Tower Technology Roadmap and Cost Reduction Plan," SAND2011-2419. (PDF 503 KB)

Turchi, C. S. (2010). "Parabolic Trough Reference Plant for Cost Modeling with the Solar Advisor Model (SAM)," NREL/TP-550-47605. (PDF 7.2 MB)

These studies differed in some important assumptions. The differences in the location and cooling method assumptions for the default cases of the CSP technologies are outlined in the following table. The choice of location affects solar resource and the assumed labor costs associated with the case. Construction labor rates in Arizona tend to be lower than in California, which reduces installed costs. For the Winter 2016 version of SAM, all CSP systems are assumed to use dry cooling. SAM can model systems with dry cooling, wet cooling, or a hybrid of the two. If you change the type of cooling system on the Power Cycle input page, you should also change other parameters as appropriate because SAM does not make those changes automatically. For example, different types of cooling systems would require different power cycle costs and design-point performance parameters. Perhaps less obvious, the site preparation costs are lower for dry-cooled (air-cooled) systems than for wet-cooled (evaporative) systems because of the elimination of the large blowdown evaporation ponds required for wet systems.

 

The trough, tower, and linear Fresnel models assume the “balance of plant” cost category is composed of the steam generation system (Kolb, 2011). This choice is made to allow users to highlight the effect of a direct steam generation (DSG) design. In a DSG design, the balance of plant cost category is zero because steam generation occurs in the solar receiver.

The lesser commercial activity in linear Fresnel systems makes cost values for those technologies more uncertain than for troughs and towers. Linear Fresnel costs are estimated based on discussions with developers and researchers.