SAT Practice30d872e5-cff4-46a3-89ab-715e2bf8bdbe

Practice one SAT question at a time

Questions come from the Bluebook question bank. Made by Iskaa303 (Iskander Madikhan).

Having demonstrated that the power conversion efficiency of new perovskite photovoltaic cells is nearly indistinguishable from that of cells recycled multiple times, Xun Xiao and colleagues evaluated the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE)—a measure of cost per produced electricity unit that incorporates materials acquisition costs as well as operating costs—for power plants utilizing each type of cell. With a modeled 15-year cell lifetime, the LCOE of plants using new cells was 4.99 cents per kilowatt-hour, whereas that of plants using cells recycled three times was 4.05 cents per kilowatt-hour. Moreover, the LCOE differential grew from 18.8% to 31.3% when the modeled cell lifetime was reduced by two-thirds.

Based on the text, which choice, if true, most coherently and directly accounts for the observation presented in the underlined sentence?