LEO approach allows a global market to be served from the first year of operations, as compared to the GEO cases in which only a single site market can be served initially (or possibly a regional market in the case of the SolarDisc). Case 14 SolarDisc (x60) including external costs of competing power Case 14 involves 60 SolarDisc systems deployed at multiple GEO locations. Each SPS is sized to provide service to a single Mega-city-class market (at 5 GW power delivered) through a single terrestrial rectenna site. The total power delivered by this architecture is 300 GW. Two SolarDiscs and two rectennas are deployed each year for 30 years. The major distinction between this case and Case 4 involves the examination of the effects of externality surcharges to the pure market price in evaluating economic returns. This case achieves an overall internal rate of return of 27%, with total revenues of approximately $ 18,400 B, costs of $1,800 B, and an undiscounted net present value of about $ 16,700 B (or $580 B when discounted at a rate of 10%). A full 60 SPS system based on the SolarDisc, with a deployment rate of approximately 2 SPS per year involves a greater investment-to-first-power than Case 1 ($136 B versus $57 B). This still represents a better than 2:1 reduction when contrasted to the 1979 Reference System (Case 2). The overall economic performance of this case, which includes relatively modest externality costs as a component of delivered electricity pricing, suggests that significant improvements in overall financial performance can be achieved. Case 15 MEO SunTower (x21) including external costs of competing power Case 15 includes a three-orbital inclination, 21 SPS architecture involving the SunTower system concept deployed at a middle-Earth-orbit (MEO) altitude of 6,000 km The orbital inclination of 30 degrees allows the constellation to provide essentially continuous baseload electrical energy to approximately 21 Mega- town-class markets. Each Mega-town is served by a single rectenna producing 250 MW, with the total constellation producing 5.25 GW. Hie deployment scenario includes emplacing 7 SunTowers every 2 years for 6 years, with 11 rectennas deployed in the first year and then 1 rectenna per SunTower deployed beginning in the third year (for a total of 21 SunTowers and 21 rectennas after 6 years). The major distinction between this case and Case 5 involves the examination of the effects of externality surcharges to the pure market price in evaluating economic returns. This case achieves an overall internal rate of return of approximately 17%, with total revenues of approximately $462 B, total costs of $87 B, and an undiscounted net present value of about $374 B (or $14 B when discounted at a rate of 10%). This case represents a great improvement in start-up costs when compared to GEO approaches. The 21 SunTower SPS system analyzed yields an investment-to- first-power requirement less than 6% of that in the updated 1979 Reference presented in Case 1 ($15 B versus more than $250 B) and about 10% that of the GEO SolarDisc approach (Case 4). In addition, the MEO approach allows a global market to be served from the first year of operations, as compared to the GEO cases in which only a single site market can be served initially (or possibly a regional market in the case of the SolarDisc). The overall economic performance of this case suggests that significant improvements in overall financial performance can be achieved. Case 16 MEO SunTower (x63) Case 16 presents a three-orbital inclination, 63 SPS architecture involving the SunTower system concept deployed at a middle-Earth-orbit (MEO) altitude of 6,000 km This architecture expands the basic 21-SPS architecture examined in Case 5 to determine the benefits/costs of more fully utilizing the fixed investments in a larger constellation. The orbital inclination
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