Powerplant initialization: starting costs

[chiara-fb]

Starting costs in units.powerplant.PowerPlant are initialized here as:

self.hot_start_cost = hot_start_cost * max_power

I believe the correct way should be:

self.hot_start_cost = hot_start_cost * min_power

[maurerle]

should get fixed in #696 - which is unfortunately not ready yet

[kim-mskw]

Discussion in a meeting: They should be an absolute number, potentially, because it does not matter how far I start up the fact that I have to start induces costs no matter how high I start up.

[mthede]

It depends on the data source for starting costs. In our examples, values are based on Kumar et al. (2012). They calculated the cost in units of $ / MW installed capacity, so we need the max_power. But I think there are other estimates for starting costs as well, which are based on the Δ MW. If you're using a source like that, then you need to adjust the starting cost calculation.

[chiara-fb]

Thank you for clarifying the source -- then the issue is solved.