Feature request: extend to full profast-based financial model

[jaredthomas68]

Make a full profast-based financial model

The current use of ProFAST in HOPP only relates to calculating LCOE (real and nominal) when using the custom financial model. It would be better to have a complete functional financial model that relies exclusively on ProFAST for all financial calculations.

Proposed solution

There are two basic paths to accomplishing this:

1. Removing all currently implemented financial calculations (mostly cash flows and NPV) from the CustomFinancialModel class and replacing them with calculations from ProFAST. This would be a small lift since a full ProFAST model is already being set up and run in HOPP, but would break many tests. I prefer this option.

2. Creating a new financial model class (ProFASTFinancialModel) specifically for ProFAST and removing ProFAST from the CustomFinancialModel. The benefit of this approach would be to not break existing tests, etc. However, I am concerned that the existing financial calculations may have unrecognized bugs. I did a small test of option 1 and the NPV values and cash flows were very different between the two models. I tend to trust ProFAST over what is currently in CustomFinancialModel. Given the relative trust I have in each model and the increased effort involved in option 2, I lean toward option 1.

Alternatives considered

Additional context