SAM's current annual debt interest rate default is 7% compared to 4% in ATB.
SAM uses DSCR sizing option by default, so the resulting debt percent is likely to be different than the ATB debt percent. We could change the default to debt sizing option to Debt percent. (This would also minimize confusion for users who don't understand debt sizing based on cash available for debt service, but be less realistic for project studies.)
Default Debt closing cost is $450,000 (about 0.9% of total installed cost for PV / Single Owner). This is a fixed cost that does not scale with system size. We could leave it as is, or set it to zero and account it a $/Wdc overhead cost on the System Costs page. For project-level analysis, this may be appropriate because that cost is not likely to scale with project size if it is to account for costs like legal fees that do not depend on the system size. However, for high-level analysis where it is more important to have all costs scale with system size, this fixed cost could distort results if someone forgets to set it to zero.
In general, need to consider whether defaults should be values appropriate for high-level analysis like ATB, or project-level analysis. SAM Is widely used for both, so not clear what defaults should be based on.
SAM's current annual debt interest rate default is 7% compared to 4% in ATB.
SAM uses DSCR sizing option by default, so the resulting debt percent is likely to be different than the ATB debt percent. We could change the default to debt sizing option to Debt percent. (This would also minimize confusion for users who don't understand debt sizing based on cash available for debt service, but be less realistic for project studies.)
Default Debt closing cost is$450,000 (about 0.9% of total installed cost for PV / Single Owner). This is a fixed cost that does not scale with system size. We could leave it as is, or set it to zero and account it a $ /Wdc overhead cost on the System Costs page. For project-level analysis, this may be appropriate because that cost is not likely to scale with project size if it is to account for costs like legal fees that do not depend on the system size. However, for high-level analysis where it is more important to have all costs scale with system size, this fixed cost could distort results if someone forgets to set it to zero.
In general, need to consider whether defaults should be values appropriate for high-level analysis like ATB, or project-level analysis. SAM Is widely used for both, so not clear what defaults should be based on.