of 30 degrees allows the constellation to provide essentially continuous baseload electrical energy to approximately 63 Mega-town-class terrestrial markets. Each Mega-town is served by a single rectenna producing 250 MW, with a total constellation producing more than 15 GW. The deployment scenario includes emplacing SunTowers at a rate of slightly more than 4 every year for 15 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 63 rectennas). The major distinction between this case and Case 16 involves the examination of the effects of externality surcharges to the pure market price in evaluating economic returns. Case 16 allows a comparison of a larger MEO SPS constellation producing 15 GW to a smaller MEO constellation producing approximately 5 GW. This case achieves an overall internal rate of return of approximately 17% (versus 15% for the smaller constellation), with total revenues of $860 B (versus approximately $321 B for the smaller constellation), and total costs of $212 B (versus $87 B for the 21 SPS case), and an undiscounted net present value of about $650 B (or $14 B when discounted at a rate of 10%). This MEO constellation involves 63 SunTower SPS (or comparable system approaches), provides the same improvement in start-up costs when compared to GEO approaches, and has the added advantage of greater revenues and increased IRR due to the larger constellation. Hie 63 SunTower SPS system analyzed yielded an investment-to-first-power requirement of about 6% of that in the updated 1979 Reference presented in Case 1 ($17 B versus more than $250 B) and about 10% that of the GEO SolarDisc approach (Case 4). As in other MEO cases, Case 16 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 17 MEO SunTower (x63) including external costs of competing power Case 17 presents a three-orbital inclination, 63 SPS architecture involving the SunTower system concept deployed at a middle-Earth-orbit (MEO) altitude of6000 km. This architecture expands the basic 21-SPS architecture examined in Case 5 in order to determine the benefits/costs of more fully utilizing the fixed investments in a larger constellation. The orbital inclination of 30 degrees allows the constellation to provide essentially continuous baseload electrical energy to approximately 63 Mega-town-class terrestrial markets. Each Mega-town is served by a single rectenna producing 250 MW, with a total constellation producing more than 15 GW. The deployment scenario includes emplacing slightly more than 4 SunTowers every year for 15 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 63 rectennas). The major distinction between this case and Case 16 involves the examination of the effects of externality surcharges to the pure market price in evaluating economic returns. Case 17 was designed to allow a comparison of a large MEO SPS constellation to a smaller MEO constellation producing approximately 5 GW, including the addition of externality costs. This case achieves an overall internal rate of return of approximately 20% (versus 14% for the same constellation without externality costs), with total revenues of $1,230 B (versus approximately $860 B for the constellation without extemahty costs), and total costs of $211 B (versus $87 B for the 21 SPS case), and an undiscounted net present value of about $1025 B (or $36 B when discounted at a rate of 10%). The overall economic performance of this case, which includes relatively modest externality costs a component of electric price suggests that significant improvements in overall financial performance can be achieved.
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