Analyses conducted within the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Hydrogen Program should use a common set of financial and technical assumptions to ensure consistency. Guidelines for analysis and a set of standard assumptions are under development. The following files contain key assumptions already developed for use in analyses in fiscal years 2005 and 2006. These will be supplemented and updated each fiscal year.

• The results of technology lifecycle costing exercises are highly dependent on various financial assumptions. The attached spreadsheet contains standard assumptions to be used in hydrogen-related analyses, including 10% internal rate of return.
   

• Many analyses of hydrogen and fuel cells require feedstock and utility (e.g., electricity) price projections far into the future. The assumptions that should be used for DOE analyses reflect projections from the Energy Information Administration's latest long-term projections. These have been extrapolated further into the future using simple techniques, combined with projections from a long-term energy and/or economic model developed by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.