Financial Model Overview
Catalyst separates two distinct layers of analysis: the optimization layer produces an optimal dispatch strategy and calculates the annual market revenues; the financial layer takes those revenues and combines them with asset costs to produce multi-year project economics and investment KPIs.
Capital & Operating Costs
This page covers the three cost components that enter the cashflow calculation: one-time capital expenditure (CapEx), recurring operating expenditure (OpEx), and replacement capital expenditure (ReCapEx) including the residual value recovery at project end.
Investment KPIs
This page covers the cashflow calculation and the four standard investment metrics Catalyst produces: Net Present Value (NPV), Internal Rate of Return (IRR), simple payback period, and discounted payback period.
PPA & LCOE
The PPA financial project type is designed for Power Purchase Agreement analyses, where the goal is not to maximize investment return but to determine the cost of energy supply. Instead of NPV and IRR, the PPA model produces the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) in several variants, plus a self-sufficiency metric.