New Tools for Economic Assessment of Australian CSP Projects
- Details
- Created on Sunday, 07 April 2013 00:22
- Written by AUSTELA
We are also pleased in this newsletter to announce the imminent release of new online tools to assist investors to assess the economics of Australian CSP projects.
The US National Renewable Energy Laboratories’ (NREL) System Advisor Model, or ‘SAM’ has become a global benchmark for high level analysis of CSP system performance. However the available solar data files in Australia are limited, and prone to errors, and the sophisticated cost assessment models in SAM are tailored to the US market.
With support from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), AUSTELA and IT Power (Australia) have worked with NREL to develop publicly accessible models to improve the usability of SAM for Australian CSP. These new models, and an Australian Companion User Guide, are now complete and undergoing final checks with NREL before being made available on AUSTELA’s website in April.
AUSTELA believes the SAM project will prove to be of significant benefit to investors, financiers and developers in modeling and validating expectations of system and economic performance of CSP projects in Australia.