4.7.4. Economic Dimension

This dimension comprehends all the parameters related to the costs of the implementation and execution of an EFM. The parameters that constitute the economic dimension are:


the EFM offset its costs. The company's management usually defines the expected payback period. Normally it obeys to their historical approach to factory-upgrade investments.

• EFM specific cost, *cflex,T*: cost summary indicator of the EFM, it represents the cost of the EFM by a unit of flexible energy over a specific period (T). It is calculated through the formula presented in Equation (4).

$$\mathcal{L}\_{f\text{lxi},T} = \frac{\frac{\mathcal{C}\_{\text{investment}}}{\tau\_{\text{py},\text{back}}} \ast k + \mathcal{C}\_{\text{maintenance},T} + \mathcal{C}\_{\text{activation}} \ast \mathcal{N}\_{\text{activation},T}}{\Delta E\_{f\text{lxi},T}} \tag{4}$$

where *k* represents the temporal conversion factor between τ*payback* and *T*.

Once all the different parameters across the four dimensions have been determined, the EFM has been fully characterized and the economical EFP can be determined.
