by the triangular distribution in Fig. 4.24. A skewed distribution was considered representative, because more factors seem to be left out than extra ones included at the early developmental stages of an advanced technology, since a design can never be complete 20 years in advance or before the technical problems have been solved. What is needed, in reality, is a cost distribution for the SPS. However, to assemble a subsystem cost distribution like that illustrated in Fig. 4.24 requires the consideration of correlation* in the cost components, which means that several subsystems would fall into the high cost range because of the same factors. SPS subsystems are probably highly correlated in some areas and highly uncorrelated in others. For example, energy conversion is heavily dependent on the manufacturing cost for solar cells, which is very dependent on fuel cost. That would Fig. 4.23 Distributions of Levelized Fuel Cost and Levelized Capital Charge of a Coal Plant Fig. 4.24 Typical Cost Distribution for Advanced Technologies
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTU5NjU0Mg==