The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has launched a tool that can help utilities, institutions, state and local policymakers, and the public get better answers about the changing economics of today’s power sector.
The NRDC tool improves upon existing methods to compare – on an apples-to-apples basis – the cost of producing power from different technologies in each state and region of the USA. They include large solar facilities, onshore wind farms, as well as gas, coal, and nuclear plants.
For each power source, the tool calculates the levelised cost of the electricity (LCOE), which is the minimum price that electricity must be sold at in order for the energy project generating it to break even. This includes factors such as the cost of building and operating it, as well as how often and how long it will run over its lifetime.
Along with the current generation mix in each state, the tool developed by NRDC allows users to see exactly how the levelised costs for different technologies are expected to change annually through 2030 for their state and across the USA.
