Hi NREL forum (aka probably Paul!),
For my thesis project, I need to calculate the LCOE for a PV system, and be able to compare these costs across different sized systems.
SAM seems like the right tool for this. However, I am getting different LCOE values if I set different PPA values, regardless of whether there is debt financing or not. I understand that debt costs factor into the LCOE calculation in SAM, and have read the help documentation in SAM as well as anything on the forum having to do with LCOE. To isolate this factor, I set the debt percentage to zero, and I’ve even tried removing all taxes and depreciation income and the LCOE will still change when I change the PPA price.
How can I calculate an LCOE that is not dependent on the PPA price and is instead purely dependent on the non-financing costs of the system?
If it helps, the project is a single owner photovoltaic system, and I am running it on a mac.
Thank you,
- Colin Schimmelfing