Articles

Levelized Cost of Energy Analysis for Power Generation Technologies in Afghanistan: A Comparative Techno-Economic Assessment

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Afghanistan faces significant challenges in achieving reliable, affordable, and sustainable electricity supply while remaining heavily dependent on imported electricity. Despite possessing abundant renewable energy resources, including solar, wind, and hydropower, comprehensive economic assessments of electricity generation technologies under Afghan conditions remain limited. This study presents a comparative Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) analysis of six power generation technologies relevant to Afghanistan’s energy sector: Solar Photovoltaic (PV), Wind, Hydropower, Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT), Coal-Fired Power Plants, and Biomass. A discounted cash flow methodology is employed using technology-specific technical and economic parameters representative of Afghanistan. The analysis incorporates capital expenditure, operation and maintenance costs, fuel costs, capacity factors, plant lifetimes, and financing conditions. Sensitivity analysis is performed across a range of weighted average cost of capital (WACC) values from 5% to 18% to evaluate the impact of financing risk on generation costs. Results indicate that hydropower exhibits the lowest LCOE, followed by utility-scale solar PV and wind power. Renewable technologies demonstrate strong economic competitiveness while simultaneously achieving near-zero operational carbon emissions. The findings highlight the importance of low-cost financing and provide evidence-based guidance for future energy planning, investment prioritization, and sustainable electricity sector development in Afghanistan.

A System Dynamics Model for Rooftop Solar PV System Development in Indonesia

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Despite of Indonesia’s vast solar energy potential according to the Indonesian Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Indonesia’s total installed capacity of rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) is very far from Indonesia’s target of 3.6 GW in 2025. Indonesia once applied net metering scheme for rooftop solar PV policy and was expected to be able to boost rooftop solar PV growth. A system dynamics approach is used in the research to develop an assessment model to evaluate the policies’ impact on residential rooftop solar PV system growth. A Causal Loop Diagram was established then transformed into Stock and Flow Diagram (SFD) using software Vensim PLE 10.1.3, which was used to simulate several policies’ scenarios related to residential rooftop solar PV adoption and CO2 emissions reduction. Ten scenarios were simulated in this study involving three groups of intervention: initial net metering tariff, reduction on initial solar PV cost, upper limit of ROI, and combination of initial net metering tariff and initial solar PV cost reduction. The simulations revealed that combination of increasing net metering tariff to 80% & initial cost reduction 30% has the highest potential solar PV installations, the highest CO2 emissions reduction, and the lowest accumulation cost of net metering in 2030. This study can be used as reference by the policy makers in Indonesia to formulate the optimum policy to boost rooftop solar PV growth as the simulations shows that residential rooftop solar PV with the right intervention can meet the government’s target of rooftop solar PV in 2030.