Projected Costs of Generating Electricity - OECD Nuclear Energy ...

At 5% discount rate, hydroelectricity generation costs range between some 40 and 80 USD/MWh for
all plants except in Japan where they reach more than 140 USD/MWh. O&M costs account in all cases
for less than one third of total levelised generation costs.
At 10% discount rate, hydroelectricity generation costs range between some 65 and 100 USD/MWh
for most plants but reach nearly 150 USD/MWh for the German plant and more than 240 USD/MWh for
the Japanese plant. The predominant share of investment in total levelised generation costs explains the
large difference between costs at 5% and 10% discount rate. The O&M costs, at 10% discount rate, are
only a marginal component, representing some 10% or less except for GRC-H1 in Greece.
Solar power plants
Responses to the questionnaire provided input data for six solar power plants in four countries,
including one solar thermal parabolic unit in the United States. The specific overnight construction costs
reported are ranging between 2 775 USD/kWe for the thermal parabolic plant in the United States and
10 164 USD/kWe for the 100 (4 x 25) kWe solar PV plant in the Czech Republic (see Figure 4.8 and
Table 4.4).
For all the solar power plants considered, the construction time is expected to be one year, except in
the United States (three years for the thermal parabolic plant and two years for the solar PV plant). The
plant capacities are very small, except for the 100 MWe thermal parabolic plant in the United States.
The specific annual O&M costs reported for solar power plants vary widely from plant to plant but
generally are rather low, even zero in Denmark (see Table 4.3).
Figure 4.8 – Specific overnight construction costs of solar power plants (USD/kWe)
USD/kWe
10 000
8 000
Solar PV
Thermal parabolic
6 000
4 000
2 000
0
USA-S1
USA-S2
CZE-S
DNK-S
DEU-S1
DEU-S2
Table 4.3 – Specific annual O&M costs (per kWe) for solar power plants in 2010
USA-S1 USA-S2 CZE-S DNK-S DEU-S1 DEU-S2
NCU 50.00 10.00 2 974 0 29.40 40.00
USD 50.00 10.00 107.96 0 33.63 45.76
€ 57.20 11.44 94.37 0 29.40 40.00
58