refurbishment masses must be minimized through later design efforts to avoid significant negative impacts on overall IRR. External Costs. A central issue for space solar power — and for other advanced technology renewable energy technologies - is that of whether a “charge” associated with the true costs of competing hydrocarbon combustion (e.g., fossil fuel-based) power plants can be included in the price of SSP energy. Tn order to investigate this issue, a very different trade study was conducted. The impact on the economic performance of the chosen cases that resulted from varying the allowable external costs that could be included in the price charged for SSP-derived power. The cases examined included no externality charges, a baseline externalities charge (believed to be conservative), and variations from the baseline externalities charge, including 50% of that baseline, 150%, 200% and 300% of the baseline. The results were quite significant. For example, in the GEO SolarDisc Case 4, the initial (no externalities) IRR increased by a factor of 1.29:1 (almost 30%) in going to the baseline externalities scenario, and by a factor of 1.74:1 (about 74%) in going from the no externalities case to a scenario in which externalities were 3-times the baseline. In terms of prices per kilowatt-hour, these corresponded to an average price (baseload, cycling and peaking) of about 160 kilowatt-hour (with no externalities), to 250 per kilowatt- hour (with the baseline externalities added), and to 440 per kilowatt-hour for the highest scenario examined. Similar improvements were found in Cases 13 and 16. The greatest improvement was found for MEO SunTower Case 16, with IRR increases of more than 2:1 (about 100%) in going from the no externalities case (with an IRR of about 14%) to a scenario in which externalities were 3-times the baseline (with an IRR of more than 28%). The benefits of allowing externality charges were least for LEO Sunsynchronous SunTower Case 13 because that system concept provides peaking power services predominantly (which are already at a premium projected price). SSP Share of Hardware Costs. Several trade studies were conducted with the objective of evaluating the potential effects of “off-the-books” financing (such as government subsidies) of various elements of the SSP scenario, at varying levels and/or the effect of different levels of fully-accounted manufacturing costs for the those elements. (Either interpretation of these trade studies is applicable.) The first of these trade studies sought to determine the impact on the economic performance of the chosen cases that resulted from varying the “accounted” SSP space segment costs. The cases examined included the baseline SSP hardware costs for each case, 50% of the baseline, 75%, 125% and 150% of the baseline. These variations were found to have significant, but moderate inpacts on the financial performance of the cases studied. The greatest benefits were found for the MEO SunTower Case 16, in which the IRR varied by a factor of 1.39:1 in going from 50% of the baseline hardware costs (at which point the IRR was 16.71%) to 150% of the baseline hardware costs (at which point the IRR was 12%). The two other cases, in which transportation (Case 4) and ground segment (Case 13) costs constituted a much larger proportion of overall system costs benefited much less from offsetting SSP space segment hardware costs. SSP Share of Non-Recurring Costs. In the second of these cases, the potential economic impact of variations in the proportion of the non-recurring costs attributable to the hypothetical SSP “venture”. (This could correspond, for example, to government support for development of systems, establishment of manufacturing facilities, etc., but not in the manufacture of actual commercial SSP systems.) The cases examined included the SSP “venture” convering 0% of non-recurring costs, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of non-recurring costs. In general the economic benefits of these scenarios were found to be real, but again moderate. Improvements in IRR ranged from a factor of 1.07:1 (about 6%) for Case 4, to a
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