Standardize specific costs

[softwareengineerprogrammer]

Idea from a GEOPHIRES user re: standardizing/itemizing costs:

It’d be interesting for someone to take [GEOPHIRES] metrics, drop em into a table, and then line by line calculate a “specific cost” (cost per gross or net kW). That’d allow better comparison to industry norms or aspirations. Then with all those costs and specific costs in a table, one could track [a project's] progress towards those goals and ask what would need to be true for them to reach those targets, and how close to those are they currently.

The 2012 ESMAP Geothermal Handbook is something that I've used for years with relatively clear category distinctions, in terms of phases of development or areas. Sometimes I condense their definitions a bit. Figure 1.10 is a good pie chart representation of cost by element, and then Table 1.6 provides typical indicative costs by phase for a 50 MW (gross, generator output) plant. One can get specific costs from this e.g. the medium estimate total project cost of 196 MUSD results in 196/50=3900 USD/kW, or one can sum the drilling costs of (18+70)/50 and get drilling costs of around 1760 USD/kW. Would have to adjust for inflation but the basic scheme as set out in ESMAP is something generally familiar to people. What are drilling costs per kW, what are surface plant costs, exploration, transmission etc etc.

If an individual element is out of whack, then one can ask why, or what would need to be true for that aspect to be improved.
It did seem odd that the GEOPHIRES run said the total capital costs for [a case study] were 1072.95M, which didn't seem to be the sum all the drilling+stimulation+surface equip, so not sure what that row means.

Handbook is readily available on the ESMAP.org site [at https://www.esmap.org/sites/esmap.org/files/DocumentLibrary/FINAL_Geothermal%20Handbook_TR002-12_Reduced.pdf ]

[softwareengineerprogrammer]

Addressed, in part, by addition of SAM economic model(s), work in progress at softwareengineerprogrammer#69