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QUANTIFYING THE UNCERTAINTY OF SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC SOFT COSTS IN THE “COST OF RENEWABLE ENERGY SPREADSHEET TOOL” (CREST) MODEL

Part of: Socio-technical Issues in Design

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2020

S. M. Syal  and
E. F. MacDonald
S. M. Syal*
Affiliation:
Stanford University, United States of America
E. F. MacDonald
Affiliation:
Stanford University, United States of America
*
*syalsm@stanford.edu

Abstract

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While solar photovoltaics are projected to grow, major financial barriers exist that impede installation. Soft costs (human-driven costs) can account for over half of total project costs and are often simplified in typical models. We use the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's “Cost of Renewable Energy Spreadsheet Tool” to quantify uncertainty of three soft cost inputs and their influence on the output cost of energy using variance-based sensitivity indices. We then suggest how the development process and model can be redesigned to represent the complexities of this socio-technical system.

Keywords

uncertaintyengineering designsustainability
Type
Article
Information
Proceedings of the Design Society: DESIGN Conference , Volume 1 , May 2020 , pp. 2157 - 2166
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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