Value chain · CLM-0689
In plain terms
The Chinese team published its own cost figures for a one-gigawatt system: about 17.3 billion US dollars over 30 years, which they put at about 6.6 US cents per kilowatt-hour. They say this is more than 30 per cent cheaper than their previous design.
The claim as recorded
CAST's MMR-SPS paper publishes a full life-cycle cost breakdown for a 1 GW system: space segment USD 15,202 M, ground segment USD 2,070.7 M, total USD 17,272.7 M, against a stated life-cycle energy of 262.8 billion kWh, giving "approximately 6.6 U.S. cents" per kWh. The paper states this is "lowered by more than 30%" against the earlier MR-SPS concept's estimate.
Scope and limits
The USD basis year is NOT stated anywhere in the pages read, so no inflation adjustment or currency comparison can be made rigorously. The cost model's own input assumptions are not reproduced in this paper; it refers the reader to the earlier MR-SPS cost analysis. Critically, 6.6 cents is an UNDISCOUNTED cost divided by undiscounted energy. It is NOT an LCOE and must not be compared directly with a discounted LCOE - see CLM-0690. Self-reported by the design's own authors, hence stance POS.
What it assumes
1 GW continuous supply, 30-year life, 100 per cent capacity factor (implied exactly by the 262.8 bn kWh figure).
Where it comes from
Every figure self-checks by arithmetic. Table II's six cost columns sum to 15,202 exactly (91 + 6016 + 4417 + 2880 + 1675 + 123). Table III's sum to 2,070.7 exactly (9.8 + 1439.7 + 290.4 + 363 - 32.2). The two totals give 17,272.7, matching Table IV's stated ~17300. 1 GW continuous for 30 years is 262.8 billion kWh exactly, matching the stated figure. 17,272.7 M / 262.8 bn kWh = 6.57 cents, matching the stated ~6.6. Table IV was additionally read from a 4.5x rendered page image, not the text layer, because the text layer of this PDF is corrupted in places (it renders 5.8 as "S.8", 50 as "so", 2.4 as "-2A" and 0.1x10.5 as "0.1K10.S"). Table IV's four subsystem masses sum to 9,160 t, matching its own stated total exactly.
Basis: USD, YEAR NOT STATED, UNDISCOUNTED
Related records
- Answers question
- QST-037 not published in this release
Cite this
energyaperture.com/c/clm-0689
CLM-0689, Energy Aperture, as of 2025.
Connected records
Other published records linked to this one. A list, not a judgement.
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