Annual demand target
—United States
55% electricity target.
100% stretch scenario.
Size a few large, independent Wegawomb units in parallel. Calculate the input energy they would need—not energy they have demonstrated.
Changing geography starts a fresh study. Kenya is part of Africa; the two totals must not be added. Electricity only—not transport fuels or all energy use.
Required mechanical rating / large unit
—Calculated requirement, not available equipmentRequired external input energy
—Before conversion, auxiliaries and delivery lossesModeled Wegawomb demand coverage
UnknownDepends on entered source; independent hydro excludedThe initial unit rating is sized to the 55% annual target using three large units and one 24-hour maintenance window. These are arithmetic assumptions, not supplier ratings or a service recommendation. Sizing never changes available input energy. The what-if explicitly assumes all the required external energy exists.
Prefilled illustration · USD · Not quoted
Economic gate · project and funding case
Explore input-energy cost, electricity value, installed spending and payback together. The target-sized illustration assumes the required external energy exists; it does not fill the unknown source fields or establish actual revenue.
Economic verdict
UnknownConditional screen, not an investment approvalSource-to-load efficiency
UnknownDelivered output ÷ shaft + imported inputUpstream power required
UnknownNormal-state captured mechanical powerAnnual electrical output
UnknownDelivered before additional upstream debitsAnnual input energy
UnknownCaptured shaft energy; imports costed separatelyInput-energy cost
UnknownSource plus purchased electricity per yearElectricity value
UnknownAnnual accepted sales at the assumed priceDelivered operating cost
UnknownAnnual operating spend ÷ all delivered kWhAnnual margin
UnknownOperating surplus before financing and taxBreak-even input price
UnknownUSD/shaft-kWh before capital recoveryCoupler energy penalty
UnknownAssumed same-output comparison · edit coupler inputs. Negative = credit.Simple payback
UnknownProject CAPEX ÷ positive annual marginTarget-payback CAPEX ceiling
UnknownIncludes linked O&M changes; not bankable costIncremental coupler decision
UnknownOptional upgrade only · not included in project totalsCoupler-only payback
UnknownExtra installed cost ÷ positive annual benefitInstalled project CAPEX
UnknownSource + plant + installation + contingencyAnnual operating spend
UnknownEnergy, O&M and selected backupNet present value
UnknownSelected study life and real discount rateBreak-even sale price
UnknownUSD/kWh including discounted capital recoveryShorter-payback study: the default target is five years. The target-budget button lowers the three capital allowances to the calculated spending ceiling and recalculates linked O&M. It does not reduce real construction costs, improve the hardware, raise energy output or create an actual supplier quote. Restore illustrative prices to compare with the original money assumptions.
Optional upgrade · same useful output · assumption-based
Does the magnetic coupler earn its extra cost?
Compare a conventional connection with a proposed coupler delivering the same shaft energy to the generator. Lower efficiency requires more upstream energy. We price that difference once; we do not also charge lost electricity sales.
This is a separate incremental comparison, not added to the project CAPEX or margin above. Reconcile the two budgets before using them together. Available source limits are never increased. All per-kW inputs use the full mechanical capacity costed in the selected financial basis, not a single cartridge.
How the comparison works and what evidence is missing
Required source energy = downstream shaft energy ÷ coupling efficiency. Energy penalty = difference in source energy × the source running price, plus additional electrical use × the purchased-electricity price. Annual benefit = avoided costs − added upkeep − energy penalty. Coupler-only payback = incremental installed cost ÷ positive annual benefit. Negative installed cost is an upfront saving, not negative payback.
Financial life, real discount rate, energy prices and target payback come from “Edit the money assumptions” below. The required-savings line is a simple-payback threshold, not proof of positive net present value. A conditional case also requires positive incremental NPV and payback within both the target and study life. An upfront-saving case has a different trade-off; inspect its annual benefit and NPV.
The proposed coupler still needs matched load-dependent efficiency, peak-power capacity, thermal and fatigue data, installed quotations, and documented maintenance/downtime savings. The steady annual comparison does not establish source availability or hourly performance. Piezo-primary needs a separate matched alternative; its transfer fraction is already modeled in that architecture.
Research context: Zhu and Meng, 3D analysis of eddy current loss in the permanent magnet coupling (2016), combines analysis and simulation with measurements on two couplings. This supports checking design-specific losses, not assigning Wegawomb an efficiency, cost or service life. No hardware validation is implied by these financial calculations.
Edit the money assumptions
Capital and annual cash-flow breakdown
Break-even price and downside tests
All starting prices are round-number teaching assumptions—not published equipment costs, quotes, regional tariffs, a funding request or guaranteed returns. USD is used in every region; no currency conversion. Generator-led and piezo-primary budgets are edited separately and begin with the same invented rates. Proportional cost-per-kW scaling does not establish cost or feasibility for unprecedented machine sizes.
What a funder still needs—and how the cash flows work
Evidence still needed: an identified energy source and its availability/cost; tested loaded output and durability; a supplier-backed bill of materials and installation plan; land, permits and network access; a buyer/offtake agreement; and an independently reviewed financing model. The example is a discussion tool, not a bankable proposal.
Sales value delivered electricity after active auxiliaries and network losses. Purchased electricity pays for auxiliary deficits, offline standby and additional upstream draw once. Source running costs exclude source capital and any drive electricity already charged. If an all-in energy supplier tariff includes source capital, remove that capital allowance to avoid duplicating it. Hydro is purchased backup with a separate energy price and annual fee; it earns no Wegawomb revenue. Missing selected backup availability leaves returns unresolved.
Fixed O&M is a percentage of total CAPEX including contingency; variable O&M applies to all delivered output, including the unsold fraction. Site allowance includes civil work, installation, cooling, protection, engineering and connection—no actual geography or transmission network has been designed. No battery investment or storage revenue is included.
Constant-dollar annual cash flows exclude construction delays, debt, taxes, grants, inflation, degradation and salvage. Study years are not proven hardware life. Routine replacement spending is represented only by the editable O&M allowance. Stress tests vary assumptions; they are not confidence intervals. Default reduced-supply policy has no contractual outage penalties; a real supply agreement may introduce them.
Method references: NIST Handbook 135 for discounted cash flow and payback, and NREL/NLR cost-of-electricity method for capital, O&M and energy-cost categories. Neither is a source for the invented Wegawomb prices.
Required capacity versus available source
No real primary energy source has been selected. These power and annual-energy limits apply to the whole plant; adding units never multiplies them. Magnets and piezoelectric materials convert or transfer supplied energy. They do not sustain operation without it.
When units stop for maintenance
Hydropower is no longer the normal input. Optional backup is separate electricity at the shared load bus, capped by both its power and energy during maintenance. It is never credited as Wegawomb output. Storage from the earlier four-hour study is not credited here.
Parallel units and continuous-operation limits
Each independently driven unit feeds a common bus through its own protection and isolation. One unit can be shut down while others continue. This is a proposed arrangement—not an engineered interconnection or an unconditional 24/7 guarantee.
An offline unit reduces conversion capacity. If the source already limits output, electricity can stay unchanged or increase slightly because fewer active units need auxiliaries. Independent source paths, switchgear, synchronization, fault protection and safe isolation remain engineering requirements. A shared source or bus is a common failure point.
Annual demand coverage is an energy target, not the fraction of every hour’s load served. Continuous service, coincident peak demand, forced outages and geographic transmission constraints need separate studies.
Benchmark, assumptions and limits
Edit conversion and operating assumptions
Conversion fractions are unvalidated design assumptions. The hybrid credits no unmeasured piezo generation. Piezo-primary scaling is research—not a power rating for CIPS. A huge required rating is not evidence that a single machine at that size can be built.
This screen assumes steady input and flat target-share load during two states: normal operation and one maintenance window. An insufficient annual source budget uniformly reduces source power in both states. Actual weather, fuel, motion, separate maintenance windows, startup, ramping and hourly reliability are not modeled.
The prefilled funding illustration is separate from actual quoted project costs. The earlier cost calculator remains available; its budget is not transferred to this plant.
Method context: SAM outage modeling and NREL backup reliability research. Neither validates Wegawomb.