Cost of Generation User’s Guide Version 3, Based on Version 3.98 of the Cost of Generation Model

The Cost of Generation Model User’s Guide is a manual for the California Energy Commission’s Cost of Generation Model. It provides an understanding of how the Cost of Generation Model operates, the features that are available to the user, and some of the underlying calculations that drive the model.

The primary function of the model is to calculate levelized costs—the total costs of building and operating a power plant over the economic life converted to equal annual payments in dollars per megawatt-hour and dollars per kilowatt-year for utility-scale electric generating technologies. These are the costs as seen by the developer; they do not account for system costs nor do they reflect the interaction of the technology with the electrical generation system. The primary internal use of the Cost of Generation Model is to provide levelized costs and supporting data assumptions for use in energy program studies at the Energy Commission and other state agencies.

The present version of the Cost of Generation Model has preset data for 19 central station generation technologies—5 gas-fired and 14 renewable technologies—but can accommodate an almost unlimited number of other technologies, as well as modified scenario data on existing technologies. This version of the Cost of Generation Model improves on earlier versions. Most important, it assesses high and low levelized cost ranges using probabilistic analysis provided by Lumina’s Analytica Model.