Fig. 9. 0-costs and 0-returns of the public utilities (Federal Republic of Germany). Since through the terrestrial utilization of solar cells neither power plant capacity nor grid capacity is saved the electric power fed into the grid can only be valued with maximum one third of the average costs of the public electricity supply (Fig. 9), i.e., today at maximum 5 Pf/kWh. Through the extraterrestrial utilization conventional power plant capacity may be saved and this would apply for base load power plants due to the expected — or hoped for — high availability. For this reason the investment costs for an SPS concept have to be related to the total investment costs and the fuel costs of nuclear power plants. Figure 10 shows the development of the specific plant costs of thermal power plants at the time of commissioning (including construction interests and taxes). In addition to this there are still the saved fuel costs of approximately 1.5 Pf for each kWh generated. If there would have been SPS plants in 1980, and if 7000 operating hours and 17.5% depreciation were considered, the operational costs would have been 4.75 Pf/kWh and the fuel costs 1.5 Pf/kWh, which amounts to 6.25 Pf/kWh in total. As a result of the preceding considerations it should be kept in mind that the economy of grid-connected operation of terrestrial photovoltaic systems under cen-
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