Battery-related elements of system costs

Dear REV,

For systems with batteries, you can find installation-related costs on the System Costs page where they can be specified either in $/kWh of storage capacity or $/kW of rated battery bank power, or both. The total battery installed cost is the sum of those two dollar amounts.

Battery replacement costs are on the Battery Storage input page, toward the bottom under "Battery Bank Replacement." The replacement cost is in $/kWh of storage capacity. SAM can calculate the timing of battery replacements based either on a fixed schedule that you specify, or at a capacity threshold percentage that you specify assuming that the battery capacity degrades over time based on the battery lifetime options you choose.

How you allocate battery-related costs to the different cost categories is up to you. Any costs that you want to scale with battery capacity or battery power (assuming you model different scenarios with different battery sizes) should be included in the battery-specific $/kWh or $/kW cost.

SAM's default values for installation labor, installer margin/overhead, engineer/developer overhead, and O&M costs on the System Costs page for a PPA project are the same for a system with or without batteries. The default costs are only a starting point for your analysis and do not represent actual costs.

Best regards,
Paul.