in order to ensure consistency among cost data the exchange rates used in the projected costs study were adopted the assumed exchange rates are usd eur and usd gbp those investment costs are then divided by the total amount of electricity produced by a given plant during its lifetime opportunely discounted for a given country a given technology and a given penetration level the firm capacity guaranteed by that technology and the one guaranteed by the existing mix of dispatchable technologies that would provide the same electrical energy output were calculated