Capacity Credit

The document defines capacity credit as the fraction of rated capacity considered firm for calculating module reserve margins. It notes that thermal plants typically do not exceed average annual Maximum Availability, while intermittent renewable plants have lower values, and some sources, such as imported electricity, may have zero capacity credit. For endogenous capacity planning, the document specifies that at least some plants must have a capacity credit greater than zero to contribute to the reserve margin, and suggests a first-order approximation for renewable plants based on the ratio of their availability to that of a standard thermal plant.

• Capacity credit is the portion of a process's rated capacity that is treated as firm when calculating the module reserve margin.
• Capacity credit values vary by technology: thermal plants are generally limited by average annual Maximum Availability, intermittent renewables have lower values, and some sources like imported electricity may have zero credit.
• In endogenous capacity specifications, plants with zero capacity credit do not contribute to the planning reserve margin; therefore, at least some plants in a module must have a credit greater than zero.

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (n.d.). Capacity Credit. https://leap.sei.org/help24/Transformation/Capacity_Value.htm

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. Capacity Credit. n.d. https://leap.sei.org/help24/Transformation/Capacity_Value.htm.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=Capacity Credit |url=https://leap.sei.org/help24/Transformation/Capacity_Value.htm |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitutendcapacity, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{Capacity Credit}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, url = {https://leap.sei.org/help24/Transformation/Capacity_Value.htm}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }