Understanding Capture Prices

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What are Capture Prices?

A Capture Price is the average electricity price (in €/MWh) that a project achieves according to its technology (wind or solar PV) and geographic-specific renewable energy resources (wind speed or solar irradiation) throughout a given period of time.

Capture prices tend to decrease in comparison to baseload prices as the generation capacity of a project-specific technology increases.

How to calculate them?

1. Using our PPA Evaluation Tool

• Set your project's technology & geographic location
• The Tool will automatically calculate the capture prices for 2021 & 2022
• Compare with your project's price range

2. Using the Formula

The capture prices (CP) can be calculated in two steps using hourly production (hP) values of a renewable energy project and electricity market spot prices (hSP) over a specific period of time.

Step 1: hourly revenues = hP x hSP

Step 2: CP = sum of hourly Revenues / sum of hP

Why are they relevant?
 

• A PPA price of a project is significantly impacted by its capture price, since it defines its financial value through the ability to generate revenues.

• Capture prices define the worth of specific technologies within certain geographic location.

• Forecasting capture prices are among the most important elements when performing financial modeling analysis for investment driven decisions.