Why is capital Cost captured every year in the OSeMOSYS model? I was thinking since capital Cost is a one-off cost, it should be captured once in a year and then it should be zero in consecutive years. So only variable cost and fixed cost can be captured in consecutive years after the capital Cost. Also, why is variable cost zero for fossil fuels in the model?
Hi @Chikeme it depends on what you are inputting into your model and what constraints are in place. For example, if your energy demand is increasingly every year, it is likely that capacity will need to increase. The capital cost units are also important in your consideration (e.g. million $ per MW). Therefore, capital cost appears every year as the model needs to invest in more capacity, to meet demand.
Secondly, variable cost usually represents the fuel cost. I am assuming (if you are working on the OSeMOSYS OU course) that the variable cost is applied to the extraction technologies (e.g. MINCOA), so there should be some variable cost for fossil fuels in each year of your model. The fixed and capital cost is then usually applied to the energy production technologies (e.g. PWRCOA).
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