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25 July 2006
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Incentives make all the difference...
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I came across this story
in June 2005 issue Waterworld magazine.
I followed the link to Atlantic County Utilities Authority
website where I found this press
release ( flaky link here's the text)
and did a little math on what I found.
The installation cost $3.25 million, for a 500kW system
The unit cost was $6.50/Watt
There was a 1.9 million rebate (58%) from the state bringing the cost down to
$1.35 million
That dropped the unit cost to $2.70/Watt
The system produces 135,000 kWHr ( they said kilowatts, tisk, tisk, tisk,
back to school with them) which the equated to 135 SRECs. A quick glance
shows the RECs they are selling are Megawatt-hour (MWHr) denominated, not
kilowatt-hour (kWHr), but the price is proportionately larger by a factor of
1000, so it's a wash.
But look at that $237.65 / MWHr price... That's $0.23765 per kWHr... WOW!!!
we've been quoting benefits at $0.047 per kWHr or $47/MWHr. The market is
paying FIVE times more than we thought! (That's why I cut and paste this
story.)
So 135 SRECs at $237.65 each is $32082.75 Very nice!!! Congratulations to
ACUA.
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Just for grins, imagine the ACUA used the same footprint for a Solar &
Thermal System, the power would be about double or ~ 1MW, the cost of that
system would have been about $2 million a savings of $1.25 million, an notice
the rebate... that was probably based on system capacity, but it's clearly
conceivable that the ACUA might have got the system for oh let's say 42% of $2MM
or $840,000.00
And that rebate check, well with two times the capacity, it would double too.
I'd call that the $64000 answer.
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