{"id":55,"date":"2018-02-07T22:46:38","date_gmt":"2018-02-07T22:46:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/joules2dollars\/?page_id=55"},"modified":"2018-03-09T15:31:03","modified_gmt":"2018-03-09T15:31:03","slug":"lab-experiences","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/joules2dollars\/lab-experiences\/","title":{"rendered":"Lab Experiences"},"content":{"rendered":"

March 12, 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n

Video Resource:<\/strong> Excel tutorial on calculating payments<\/a> on a $26,000 auto loan
\nIn-Lab Assignment:<\/strong> Construct an Excel spreadsheet for financing the purchase of a $150,000 home using a 30-year mortgage of monthly payments and a fixed interest rate of 4% and answer the following questions:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. How much total interest will you be paying on this mortgage?<\/li>\n
  2. Suppose you make one extra payment per year on the principal of the loan, spread out over the year (e.g., if your monthly payment is $600, recalculate your worksheet with a payment of an additional $50\/month).\u00a0 What happens to the total interest paid and the number of months before the mortgage is paid off?<\/li>\n
  3. Suppose instead that after 10 years of dutifully paying your mortgage, interest rates fall to 2%.\u00a0 The bank will let you refinance the remaining 20 years on your mortgage at the lower rate, but you must pay a fee (a.k.a. \u201cclosing costs\u201d) of $1,000.\u00a0 Should you refinance your mortgage?\u00a0 Justify your answer carefully and completely with the appropriate calculations.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    March 5, 2018<\/strong>
    \n    Tour of the Share-Swenson-Watson (SSW) building<\/a><\/p>\n

    February 26, 2018<\/strong>
    \nNREL System Advisor Model (    SAM<\/a>)<\/p>\n

    In this lab your will perform a full system and financial analysis of a residential solar installation. \u00a0 \u00a0You will need the following.
    \n1.<\/strong> Location of your home (or the property for which you are doing this analysis) – GPS coordinates preferred (use Google Earth)
    \n2.<\/strong> Approximate angle of the roof
    \n3.<\/strong> Compass orientation of the roof
    \n4.<\/strong> A     typical electric bill<\/a> with 12 months of power consumption<\/p>\n

    Before lab<\/strong> review this tutorial for SAM<\/a><\/p>\n

    5.<\/strong> You should also be prepared to estimate the interest rate for any debt financing of the system and an estimate for the annual increase in the price of power.
    \n6.<\/strong> Run the full SAM simulation on your project. Modify the model to test the range of reasonable assumptions for interest rates and electricity pricing.
    \n7.<\/strong> Export the results of each run as a CSV file and import the date into Excel. \u00a0 Define the meaning of each row in the simulation and track the calculations. Build a new calculated row to calculate the total cash flow of the project as a function of year.
    \n8.<\/strong> Tabulate the results from each simulation paying attentions to the output functions: Nominal LCOE, Net present value, Internal Rate of Return, and Payback period. \u00a0Define each of these terms. \u00a0Calculate the Net Present Value and Internal Rate of Return in Excel using the modeled payments for life of the solar system.
    \n9.<\/strong> Now considering the results of your analysis, why wouldn’t every electricity customer consider solar?<\/p>\n

    Resources<\/strong>
    \n    Google’s Project Sunroof<\/a>
    \n    National Renewable Energy Lab: System Advisor Model<\/a>
    \n    GBS-pricing-schedule<\/a>
    \n    Post Tariff PV pricing<\/a><\/p>\n

    Reports & Analyses<\/strong>
    \nProfessor King\u2019s home:<\/em>
    \n–     Solar Electric Proposal (Garage Roof 18 Renesola 255w)<\/a>
    \n–     Solar Shade Analysis<\/a>
    \n–     King PV system analysis.zsam<\/a>
    \nProfessor Donihue\u2019s home:<\/em>
    \n–     Solar Shade Analysis<\/a>
    \n–     Solar Electric Roof Project<\/a>
    \n– SAM analysis for roof project (    Model file<\/a>; Excel download<\/a>)
    \n–     Solar Electric Tracking Proposal<\/a>
    \n–     Solar Domestic Hot Water Proposal<\/a>
    \n– Electricity bill for     January 2018<\/a><\/p>\n

    \n

    February 19, 2018<\/strong>
    \n    Heat of Wood Combustion Calculations Worksheet<\/a>
    \n    Calculating the heat content of fuels 2018<\/a>
    \n    Bonds Broken Bonds Formed Worksheet<\/a><\/p>\n

    \n

    February 12, 2018<\/strong>
    \n    Biomass Plant Tour<\/a>
    \nSimple payback calculations     worksheet<\/a> for Colby’s Biomass Plant –\u00a0 Test your understanding<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    March 12, 2018 Video Resource: Excel tutorial on calculating payments on a $26,000 auto loan In-Lab Assignment: Construct an Excel spreadsheet for financing the purchase of a $150,000 home using a 30-year mortgage of monthly payments and a fixed interest rate of 4% and answer the following questions: How much total interest will you be … <\/p>\n

    Continue reading “Lab Experiences”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/joules2dollars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/55"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/joules2dollars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/joules2dollars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/joules2dollars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/132"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/joules2dollars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/joules2dollars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/55\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":324,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/joules2dollars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/55\/revisions\/324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/joules2dollars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}