When you run SAM, you provide information about the cost of installing and operating the system by specifying inputs on the Installation Costs and Operating Costs pages. SAM organizes the costs into installation and operating costs:

Installation Costs are in Year 0 of the project cash flow:

•Direct capital costs for equipment purchases and installation labor

•Indirect capital costs for permitting, engineering, and land-related costs

Operating Costs are in Years 1 and later of the cash flow:

•Costs for labor, equipment, and other costs associated with operating and maintaining the project

You can also specify costs associated with financing the project on the Financial Parameters page:

•Construction loan

•Project loan

•Taxes and insurance

•Fees associated with the project structure for projects involving two partners or a lease

When you create a new case or file, SAM populates inputs with default values to help you get started with your analysis. For example, if you create a case for a utility-scale photovoltaic project with a single owner, SAM populates the inputs on the Financial Parameters, Installation Costs, and Operating Costs pages with values that are reasonable for a typical PV project for power generation in the United States. The default values are just a starting point: As you develop and refine your analysis, you should change the inputs to values that are appropriate for your analysis scenario.

Here's an example: The default module cost for a PV project with the single owner financial model in SAM 2012.5.11 was $1.95/Wdc. That cost is based on NREL research on benchmark prices in the United States to help the U.S. Department of Energy's Solar Energy Program evaluate its programs. Obviously, the module price for a real project is likely to be different than the benchmark U.S. price, and it is up to you to determine appropriate costs for your analysis. For the other technologies (concentrating solar power, wind, biomass, geothermal, and solar water heating), the default costs are similarly representative values based on the U.S. market at the time of the SAM release.

Note. For a list of web resources with costs for renewable energy projects, see Cost Data pages for each technology on the SAM website.