Comparative PV LCOE calculator

This tool calculates levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for photovoltaic (PV) systems based on cost, performance, and reliability inputs for a baseline and a proposed technology.

Choose your inputs and watch the effect on LCOE to determine whether a proposed technology is cost-effective, to perform trade-off analysis among different technology options, and to do break-even analysis of cost or performance. Each button adjusts a single input to make the baseline and proposed LCOE equal.

For more details, please consult the documentation. You may also be interested in other tools for calculating cost and performance for renewable energy.

Presets for Inputs

Use the presets (below) to choose a different cell technology, package type, system type, location, or inverter loading ratio for the inputs.
Cell Technology ?
Package Type ?
System Type ?
Location ?
Inverter Loading Ratio ?

Baseline

Cost

Performance

Reliability

Financial

Proposed

Cost

Performance

Reliability

Financial

Results

LCOE result

Baseline LCOE (USD/kWh)

Proposed LCOE (USD/kWh)

Additional results

Baseline

Module price (USD/W)

Total installed system cost (USD/W)

Proposed

Module price (USD/W)

Total installed system cost (USD/W)

Notes

License

This software is made available under a BSD 3-clause license

Citation

If you use results from this calculator in a publication or proposal, please cite it:

SJ Andrews, B Smith, MG Deceglie, KA Horowitz, and TJ Silverman. “NREL Comparative PV LCOE Calculator.” Version 2.0.1, August 2021

Note: We recommend including the URL for a specific commit if citing results from an unreleased version.