LEARNING PATH · LEARN
Industrial economics
An engineer who understands money makes better technical decisions. CAPEX, OPEX, total cost of ownership, return on investment, cost of energy, business case.
5 lessons · 33 min
- 1 Discovery 6 min CAPEX and OPEX: the two pockets of money in an industrial project The most structuring distinction in industrial economics: what you spend once to buy (CAPEX) and what you spend continuously to operate (OPEX).
- 2 Practitioner 6 min TOTEX and cost of ownership: the real price of an asset Adding up investment and operation across the whole service life: TOTEX and TCO reveal what an asset really costs, far beyond its price tag.
- 3 Practitioner 7 min ROI and payback: is an investment worth it? Two simple tools to decide: return on investment measures the gain, payback measures how fast the investment pays for itself.
- 4 Practitioner 7 min LCOE: comparing the cost of solar, gas and nuclear on the same basis The levelized cost of energy reduces any generation source to a single figure — the price of one MWh over the whole life of the plant — so that very different technologies can be compared.
- 5 Expert 7 min Building a business case: turning a technical idea into a decision The synthesis of the whole track: assembling CAPEX, OPEX, TCO, ROI and risks into a file that gets an industrial investment a yes.