Estimation of Benefits from Demonstrating Advanced Wet/Dry Cooling Technology: A Framework and Partial Analysis

摘要

An analysis was performed to estimate reductions in future electric power generation costs expected to occur through a proposed 6- to 10-MWe demonstration of an ammonia (NH3 cooling concept. The resulting informa¬tion is intended to assist the Energy Research and Development Administra¬tion in deciding the extent to which the public should participate in demonstrating this advanced wet/dry cooling technology.nTheoretical and empirical research on technological substitution and diffusion were reviewed in developing the analytical framework and computer model used in this analysis. Stochastic learning and market penetration functions were used to derive benefit distributions for two primary scenarios. The distributions provide not only single best estimates of the benefits, but measures of the uncertainty surrounding the estimates as well.nThe benefits were estimated by subtracting the net present value of expected future cooling costs if no demonstration were to take place from the net present value of expected future cooling costs if the demonstration did take place. If the public demonstration does not occur, two scenarios were hypothesized: 1) ammonia cooling will never be commercialized, and 2) ammonia cooling will be commercialized at a later date than if the demonstration had occurred.