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SAM Economic Models

GEOPHIRES SAM Economic Models leverage NREL's SAM Financial Models by transforming GEOPHIRES parameters into SAM parameters and running the corresponding SAM model with PySAM.

SAM Single Owner PPA

Corresponding SAM Financial Model: Power Purchase Agreement (PPA): Single owner

Parameters

The following table describes how GEOPHIRES parameters are transformed into SAM parameters, as implemented in EconomicsSam.py. (Note that the source code implementation determines actual behavior in the case of any discrepancies.)

GEOPHIRES Parameter(s) SAM Category SAM Input(s) SAM Module(s) SAM Parameter Name(s) Comment
Maximum Total Electricity Generation Generation Profile Nameplate capacity Singleowner system_capacity .. N/A
Utilization Factor Generation Profile Nominal capacity factor Singleowner user_capacity_factor .. N/A
Net Electricity Generation AC Degradation Annual AC degradation rate schedule Utilityrate5 degradation Percentage difference of each year's Net Electricity Generation from Maximum Total Electricity Generation is input as SAM as the degradation rate schedule in order to match SAM's generation profile to GEOPHIRES
Total CAPEX × (1 + Inflation Rate During Construction) Installation Costs Total Installed Cost Singleowner total_installed_cost Inflation during construction is treated as an indirect EPC capital cost percentage. Note that unlike the BICYCLE Economic Model's Total capital costs, SAM Economic Model's Total CAPEX is the total installed cost and does not subtract ITC value (if present).
Total O&M Cost, Inflation Rate Operating Costs Fixed operating cost, Escalation rate set to Inflation Rate × -1 Singleowner om_fixed, om_fixed_escal .. N/A
Plant Lifetime Financial Parameters → Analysis Parameters Analysis period CustomGeneration, Singleowner CustomGeneration.analysis_period, Singleowner.term_tenor .. N/A
Inflation Rate Financial Parameters → Analysis Parameters Inflation rate Utilityrate5 inflation_rate .. N/A
Discount Rate Financial Parameters → Analysis Parameters Real discount rate Singleowner real_discount_rate .. N/A
Combined Income Tax Rate Financial Parameters → Project Tax and Insurance Rates Federal income tax rate: minimum of {21%, CITR}; and State income tax rate: maximum of {0%; CITR - 21%} Singleowner federal_tax_rate, state_tax_rate GEOPHIRES does not have separate parameters for federal and state income tax so the rates are split from the combined rate based on an assumption of a maximum federal tax rate of 21% and the residual amount being the state tax rate.
Property Tax Rate Financial Parameters Property tax rate Singleowner property_tax_rate .. N/A
Fraction of Investment in Bonds Financial Parameters → Project Term Debt Debt percent Singleowner debt_percent .. N/A
Inflated Bond Interest Rate Financial Parameters → Project Term Debt Annual interest rate Singleowner term_int_rate .. N/A
Starting Electricity Sale Price, Ending Electricity Sale Price, Electricity Escalation Rate Per Year, Electricity Escalation Start Year Revenue PPA price Singleowner ppa_price_input GEOPHIRES's pricing model is used to create a PPA price schedule that is passed to SAM.
Investment Tax Credit Rate Incentives → Investment Tax Credit (ITC) Federal → Percentage (%) Singleowner itc_fed_percent .. N/A
Production Tax Credit Electricity Incentives → Production Tax Credit (PTC) Federal → Amount ($/kWh) Singleowner ptc_fed_amount .. N/A
Production Tax Credit Duration Incentives → Production Tax Credit (PTC) Federal → Term (years) Singleowner ptc_fed_term .. N/A
Production Tax Credit Inflation Adjusted, Inflation Rate Incentives → Production Tax Credit (PTC) Federal → Escalation (%/yr) Singleowner ptc_fed_escal If Production Tax Credit Inflation Adjusted = True, GEOPHIRES set's SAM's PTC escalation rate to the inflation rate. SAM applies the escalation rate to years 2 and later of the project cash flow. Note that this produces escalation rates that are similar to inflation-adjusted equivalents, but not exactly equal.
Other Incentives + One-time Grants Etc Incentives → Investment Based Incentive (IBI) Other → Amount ($) Singleowner ibi_oth_amount .. N/A

.. <RST_Comment> .. Comment entries of ".. N/A" render as blank in the final RST, by design. .. This entry value is required because m2r2 (https://pypi.org/project/m2r2/) seems to choke and bail on rendering .. the entire table when blank comment entries are blank. Make sure to check this doesn't happen when making changes .. to this file by running tox -e docs and opening dist/docs/SAM-Economic-Models.html in your browser! .. .. TODO: Generate this programmatically (like schema generator) to prevent drift between code and documentation. .. </RST_Comment>

Limitations

  1. Only Electricity end-use is supported
  2. Only 1 construction year is supported
  3. The following economic outputs are not calculated:
    1. Project VIR=PI=PIR
    2. Project MOIC
    3. Project Payback Period

Using SAM Economic Models with Existing GEOPHIRES Inputs

In many cases, all you need to do to use SAM Economic Models for your existing GEOPHIRES inputs is to change the Economic Model parameter value. For example, if your GEOPHIRES .txt file contained the following:

# *** Financial Parameters ***
Economic Model, 2, -- Standard Levelized Cost Model
Discount Rate, .05
Inflation Rate During Construction, 0
Plant Lifetime, 25

You would change it to:

# *** Financial Parameters ***
Economic Model, 5, -- SAM Single Owner PPA Economic Model
Discount Rate, .05
Inflation Rate During Construction, 0
Plant Lifetime, 25

For inputs with the BICYCLE economic model, such as the following:

# *** Financial Parameters ***
Economic Model, 3, -- BICYCLE
Inflated Equity Interest Rate, .08
Plant Lifetime, 30

Change Economic Model and replace Inflated Equity Interest Rate with a suitable Discount Rate and Inflation Rate:

# *** Financial Parameters ***
Economic Model, 5, -- SAM Single Owner PPA Economic Model
Discount Rate, .08
Inflation Rate, .03
Plant Lifetime, 30

Recreating SAM Economic Model Results in the SAM Desktop Application

First, open src/geophires_sam_economics/Generic_400_MWe.sam in the SAM desktop application.

Next, run GEOPHIRES for your input, e.g.:

python -mgeophires_x my-geophires-input.txt

Then check src/geophires_x/all_messages_conf.log for the SAM Economics Parameter Mapping entry:

23-05-2025 10:09:35 : INFO : EconomicsSam : calculate_sam_economics : 151 : (Process Details : (1378, MainProcess), Thread Details : (8589068352, MainThread)): SAM Economics Parameter Mapping:
-----------------  --------------------  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SAM Module         Parameter             Value
Custom Generation  analysis_period       20
Custom Generation  user_capacity_factor  90.0
Utility Rate       inflation_rate        2.0
Utility Rate       degradation           [1.2734946600673935, 0.7001040275842613, 0.5267634676194525, 0.4244824247238818, 0.3529717582311231, 0.29852256883429373, 0.2548483024454293, 0.21855974702202877, 0.18762922644042462, 0.1607514026827296, 0.13703877682895466, 0.11586181507372084, 0.09675857340703789, 0.07938054662917803, 0.06345865490418974, 0.0487810281945756, 0.03517801101748528, 0.02251175220012943, 0.010668799824934945, 0.0]
Single Owner       analysis_period       20
Single Owner       total_installed_cost  264606243.76608825
Single Owner       om_fixed              [7193902.821741002]
Single Owner       om_fixed_escal        -2.0
Single Owner       system_capacity       59020.69007804236
Single Owner       federal_tax_rate      [21.0]
Single Owner       state_tax_rate        [7.0]
Single Owner       itc_fed_percent       [30.0]
Single Owner       property_tax_rate     0.0
Single Owner       ppa_price_input       [0.08, 0.08, 0.08322, 0.08644, 0.08966, 0.09288, 0.0961, 0.09932, 0.10254, 0.10576, 0.10898000000000001, 0.1122, 0.11542, 0.11864, 0.12186, 0.12508, 0.1283, 0.13152, 0.13474, 0.13796]
Single Owner       debt_percent          40.0
Single Owner       real_discount_rate    8.0
Single Owner       term_tenor            20
Single Owner       term_int_rate         5.0
Single Owner       ibi_oth_amount        0.0
-----------------  --------------------  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can then manually enter the parameters from the logged mapping into the SAM desktop app.

Examples

SAM Single Owner PPA: 50 MWe

Web interface link

Case Study: 500 MWe EGS Project Modeled on Fervo Cape Station

Web interface link

See Case Study: 500 MWe EGS Project Modeled on Fervo Cape Station.