DOE-2 Reference Manual Version 2.1 - DOE2.com

UNITUNIFORM-COSTESCALATIONspecifies the fuel content (in Btu) of a typical unitquantity of the fuel or energy source being specified. Forexample, entry of UNIT = 100000 corresponds to the typicalfuel content of a 100 ft3 unit (one therm) of natural gas;UNIT = 138700 corresponds to the typical fuel content of agallon of oil, and UNIT = 3413 corresponds to onekilowatt-hour of electricity.The PLANT program output reports provide tabulations of boththe energy used at the boundary of the building and sourceenergy use (see SOURCE-SITE-EFF). It is recognized that theraw energy required to produce a kilowatt-hour of electricitymust reflect the power plant conversion efficiency. Theprogram divides the Btu-per-unit electricity by a factor ofSOURCE-SITE-EFF (default = 0.294) to evaluate source energy.The default value 1-kWh (3413 Btu) would yield a sourceenergy of 10,240 Btu in the default situation.specifies the cost (in dollars) of a unit quantity of theenergy resource being specified. This entry is used only ifthe cost per unit of an energy resource is uniform (i.e.,does not depend on the number of units used). For example,a gallon of oil might be $0.40 regardless of the amountused. If the cost of energy depends on the number of unitsused, data entry for this keyword is omitted and the energyblock entries described below are used. Energy block-relatedcosts are generally applicable to electricity purchased froma utility, but may also be applicable to other energy forms,such as natural gas, or to mixed fuel applications where thealternative (generally more expensive) fuel must be usedafter the monthly allotment of primary fuel has beenexhausted. It is important that energy costs refer to thesame time frame as other cost inputs. For example, ifequipment costs are based on January 1979 dollars, energycosts must reflect the price during January 1979 (seekeyword FIRST-COST in the PLANT-EQUIPMENT instruction foradditional pertinent discussion).specifies the anticipated yearly percentage increase in costfor the RESOURCE being used over and above the increaseresulting from general inflation (i .e, this is a differentialor relative cost escalation, sometimes referred to as "realgrowth"). For example, ESCALATION = 5.0 will give anincrease of 5 per cent per year (relative to general inflation)in cost per energy unit.The fuel escalation rate depends on the availability of theresource in question; therefore, this rate depends on geographicregion and on fuel type, and, in general, wi 11 varyfrom year to year. Because DOE-2 assumes the escalationrate per year to be constant, the user is advised to determinethe sensitivity of his results to the assumed rate, byrunning the program with low, medium, and high values. TableV.13 lists the differential cost escalation rates recommendedV.8S (Revi sed 5/81)