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The levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) is a metric that attempts to compare the costs of different methods of electricity generation consistently. Though LCOE is often presented as the minimum constant price at which electricity must be sold to break even over the lifetime of the project, such a cost analysis requires assumptions about the value of various non-financial costs (environmental ...
The levelized cost of electricity ( LCOE) is a measure of the average net present cost of electricity generation for a generator over its lifetime. It is used for investment planning and to compare different methods of electricity generation on a consistent basis. The more general term levelized cost of energy may include the costs of either ...
The unit commitment problem ( UC) in electrical power production is a large family of mathematical optimization problems where the production of a set of electrical generators is coordinated in order to achieve some common target, usually either matching the energy demand at minimum cost or maximizing revenue from electricity production.
Power factor. In electrical engineering, the power factor of an AC power system is defined as the ratio of the real power absorbed by the load to the apparent power flowing in the circuit. Real power is the average of the instantaneous product of voltage and current and represents the capacity of the electricity for performing work.
If a plant is only needed during the day, for example, even if it operates at full power output from 8 am to 8 pm every day (12 hours) all year long, it would only have a 50% capacity factor. Due to low capacity factors, electricity from peaking power plants is relatively expensive because the limited generation has to cover the plant fixed costs.
Merit order. The merit order is a way of ranking available sources of energy, especially electrical generation, based on ascending order of price (which may reflect the order of their short-run marginal costs of production) and sometimes pollution, together with amount of energy that will be generated. In a centralized management, the ranking ...
Wave power is the capture of energy of wind waves to do useful work – for example, electricity generation, water desalination, or pumping water. A machine that exploits wave power is a wave energy converter ( WEC ). Waves are generated primarily by wind passing over the sea's surface and also by tidal forces, temperature variations, and other ...
Energy conversion efficiency ( η) is the ratio between the useful output of an energy conversion machine and the input, in energy terms. The input, as well as the useful output may be chemical, electric power, mechanical work, light (radiation), or heat. The resulting value, η (eta), ranges between 0 and 1. [ 1][ 2][ 3]