I am running a sensitivity analysis within SAM and I have a few questions. As an EPC, I am inherently interested in understanding how the total installed cost of a system affects the financials of a project, more specifically the PPA price required of the lessor. With regards to PV installed cost - you mentioned a couple times that the value SAM is actually using is the $/kW total installed cost value. My question then becomes this: How can I properly run a sensitivity analysis to better understand how the Total installed cost affects the PPA? The parameters I can vary in the sensitivity analysis inputs selection are all broken out, there is no way to select the total installed cost.
First, a quick clarification, SAM actually uses the total installed cost in dollars ($) as the input, not the cost per capacity ($/kW).
If you are only interested in the total cost, you can ignore the detailed categories, and use one of the cost inputs to represent the total cost. And, because the various categories have different units, you can choose a category with units that work best for you ($, $/Wdc, $/Wac, etc.).
For example, for a PV system, if you want to do a sensitivity study on the total installed cost in $, set all of the cost input values to zero, and choose any one input with $ units to represent the total installed cost. Be sure to check that the calculated value (shown in blue) at the bottom of the input page is the total value you intended (that will help you make sure you did not forget to zero-out one of the inputs).
Best regards,
Paul.
