Shadow carbon price
A shadow carbon price is a planning value in dollars per tonne of CO₂e. Viable uses it to value avoided emissions on the MAC cash-flow tables. It is not a tax projection and not a market forecast.
What the price does
Each year of abatement is multiplied by that year’s shadow price. The result is a carbon saving in the cash-flow series.
Discounting uses a real rate. There is no inflation adder on the price path. Present year is the projection start year.
The default starting price is 83 Australian dollars per tonne. You can set a different starting price. The pathway shape then uses that start value.
Change the pathway on Investment. The combined emissions pathway does not change. Only the money views change.
Pathway shapes
- Constant price — the start value applies in every projection year.
- Step change in 2030 — the start value applies until 2029. From 2030 the price is 150 dollars per tonne.
- Linear rise to 2050 — the price rises in a straight line from the start value in the projection start year to 250 dollars per tonne in 2050.
- Custom pathway — you enter year and price points. The engine interpolates in a straight line between points.
The 150 and 250 figures are product constants on those presets. They do not come from your inventory.
Example: choose a pathway
Bars run from 2025 to 2050. The start value in this example is 83 dollars per tonne.
Related: NPV and EAC and MAC.