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• Basis of Cost Estimates
• Summary

Basis of Cost Estimates

The cost estimates contained in the following table are generic, based on typical industry indices. The costs given provide a measure of comparative costs of different generation options and reflect the following assumptions:

All costs are in 2003 dollars and at a NZ$/US$ exchange rate of 0.55.

Capital costs include all capital plant items and control equipment up to the generator circuit breakers.

Capital costs do not include switchyard or transmission costs downstream of the generator circuit breakers.

Capital and O&M costs do not include establishment, corporate or up-front regulatory costs.

Costs per kWh include fuel costs for fossil-fuel-fired plants, and make-up drilling costs for geothermal.

Costs per kWh take into account typical load factors for non-thermal plant (hydro, geothermal and wind). For thermal plant, where the load factors may be very low (but cannot realistically be predicted) for peaking plant, they take into account fuel and O&M costs but just assume the capital cost is recovered at 10% per annum without taking into account financing costs.

For the non-thermal plant, the costs per kWh are the long-term prices at which the projects are considered to be viable. They do therefore take into account project financing and profit, but as stated above do not include up-front establishment costs that could be significant in a full financial analysis.

Summary

Potential Generation Capacity to 2005

Erratum: Amendments to Power Generation Summary Table

[Added 1 March 2004]

⁶Assumes gas availability.

⁷Assumes gas availability.

⁸For thermal plant Annual Output (GWh) assumes load factors of 10-20%.

⁹Costs per kWh take into account typical load factors for non-thermal plant (hydro, geothermal and wind). For thermal plant, where the load factors is some cases may be very low (but cannot realistically be predicted) for peaking plant, they take into account fuel and O&M costs but assume the capital cost is recovered at 10% per annum. For the non thermal plant, the costs per kWh are the long term prices at which the projects are considered to be viable. The do therefore take into account project financing and profit, do not include up-front establishment costs.

¹⁰For thermal plant Annual Output (GWh) assumes load factors of 10-20%.