70,000 household at a price tag of $1 BILLION. Anyone see the problem here?
Rough calculation of 3 to 6 billion dollars received by the company for electricity over 30 years.
Seems like it is a viable plan.
“70,000 household at a price tag of $1 BILLION. Anyone see the problem here?”
$14,286 per household is kinda high considering it will have to be replaced on a regular basis as they break and wear down.
OK, that’s a $15,000 per customer capital outlay. There will be operating costs as well, but no fuel costs, so there’s a good chance that over the 30-year operating life they can easily amortize the $15,000 at less than the fuel costs associated with a standard plant.
Looking another way, they are talking about generating 280 megawatts. Over a 30-year period, their 1 billion capital investment comes out to 1.3 cents per kilowatt-hour. I didn’t adjust for future-value of money, so let’s double that to 2.6 cents per kilowatt-hour. that is significantly less than the energy costs of a typical oil-burning plant.
The questions I had weren’t answered. When they say “280 megawatt”, is that the average per year they expect to generate hourly, or is that their peak? If peak, then the total output is much less since they won’t generate electricity at night. They probably have storage capability so my guess is the 280 is their peak AVERAGE not the peak at noon on the hottest day of the summer.
Well, if my long division is correct, that comes out to $14,285.71 per house for the first year. Then it is free after that, right?
Over 30 years, that would a cost of $40/month/family. I’m sure that would net them a nice profit after a while with an average electric bill probably far larger than $100. That’s assuming the cost stays at $1 billion and I have no idea what the annual cost would be. Most likely they’ll double their money-—but that’s really that good for a 30 year investment.