Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
are 30 and 40 years respectively. In line with the methodology used so far, an in-
terest rate of 4.5 % is assumed.
Starting from these framework conditions, the resulting electricity generation
costs can be calculated for hydroelectric power stations being built today, consid-
ering the predicted annual energy production. For the 32 kW hydroelectric power
station previously considered as an example (Plant I, Table 8.1), it comes to
around 0.065 €/kWh. Due to the high investments lower generation costs can only
be achieved at full load hours that exceed the full load hours assumed within this
example, and at lower operation costs (e.g. very low costs for plant operation in
the case of private ownership). In contrast, the analysed small hydroelectric power
station with 300 kW rated capacity (Plant II) generates electricity at costs of
around 0.073 €/kWh; this hydroelectric power station is therefore - because of the
higher location-specific investment costs compared to Plant I - characterised by
higher electricity generation costs. Thus this plant does not necessarily reflect the
normally recognisable trend where electricity generation costs normally decrease
with increasing plant capacity. As a contrast, the first large plant we looked at as
an example shows this trend with an installed electrical output of 2.2 MW (Plant
III); it is characterised by specific electricity generation costs of 0.049 €/kWh and
thus has the lowest specific costs for the generated kilowatt hour of electrical en-
ergy of all the plants analysed here. On the other hand the analysed 28.8 MW
plant generates electricity at higher costs (Plant IV); this is due to the higher costs
in spite of the higher full load hours. This is mainly caused by high environmental
protection regulations (Table 8.2).
Table 8.2
Investment and operation costs plus electricity generation costs of the analysed
hydroelectric power stations
Reference plant
I
II
III
IV
Nominal power
in MW
0.032
0.3
2.2
28.8
Annual work (gross)
in GWh/a
0.128
1.5
11
173
Investments
Struct. components
63
37
0.138
57
43
1.67
60
40
9.1
52
48
167
in %
Electric. components
in %
Total
in Mio. €
in €/kW
4,310
5,570
4,140
5,800
Operation costs
in Mio. €/a
0.001
0.02
0.09
1.7
Electricity gen. costs
in €/kWh
0.065
0.073
0.049
0.058
The specific electricity generation costs are normally lower if already existing
plants can be reactivated or thoroughly modernised. In spite of the high level of
dependency on the location, under such conditions the costs would be between
0.03 and 0.08 €/kWh; the bottom margin of this range is again determined by
plants with larger power output and the top margin by small and very small hy-
droelectric power stations. If only the hydroelectric mechanical components have
to be renewed as part of a general overhaul, even lower electricity generation
costs are possible; depending on the individual local conditions, they can be be-
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