- Author
- Petersen, S. R.
- Title
- BLCC: The NIST "Building Life-Cycle Cost" Program, Version 4.3 User's Guide and Reference Manual.
- Coporate
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
- Sponsor
- Department of Energy, Washington, DC
- Report
- NISTIR 5185-3, October 1995, 33 p.
- Distribution
- For more information contact: BLCC5.0 (first version) is available for downloading from the DOE/FEMP Website: http://www.eren.doe.gov/femp (Click on Technical Assistance, Analytical Software Tools, and BLCC5.0 to get the downloading instructions) AVAILABLE FROM National Technical Information Service (NTIS), Technology Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, Springfield, VA 22161. Telephone: 1-800-553-6847 or 703-605-6000; Fax: 703-605-6900. Website: http://www.ntis.gov
- Keywords
- air pollution | emissions | manuals | computer programs | life cycle cost | energy conservation | carbon dioxide | sulfur dioxide | nitrous oxide
- Identifiers
- Building Life-Cycle Cost (BLCC); conducting a BLCC analysis; creating and editing data files; electricity cost calculations using erates files; BLCC quick input program
- Abstract
- ***Enclosed are two diskettes with the updated NIST LCC software for 1998. Versions of the software will be valid from April 1, 1998 to March 31, 1999. There were no changes to the software, except for the updates of the default discount rates and energy price escalation rates for 1998.*** The NIST Building Life-Cycle Cost (BLCC) computer program provides economic analysis of proposed capital investments that are expected to reduce long-term operating costs of buildings or building systems/components. It is especially useful for evaluating the costs and benefits of energy conservation projects in buildings. Two or more alternative designs can be evaluated to determine which has the lowest life-cycle cost and therefore is most economical in the long run. Economic measures, including net savings, savings-to-investment ratio, adjusted internal rate of return, and years to payback can be calculated for any design alternative relative to the designated base case. BLCC can be used for evaluating federal (including Department of Defense), state, and local government projects as well as projects in the private sector. It complies with ASTM standards related to building economics as well as Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-94 guidelines for economic analysis of federal building projects. While BLCC is primarily intended for the economic evaluation of building systems, it can be applied to a wide range of project investments which are intended primarily to reduce future operating-related costs. The "Quick Input" program (QI) included with BLCC can be used to set up multiple project alternatives for LCC analysis in a single input file. While the range of input data is somewhat limited, QI is sufficient for many simple LCC problems and provides a new link to the DOE ASEAM 5.0 energy calculation program. QI can also be used to generate input data files for BLCC when more comprehensive analysis is required. BLCC and QI are designed to run on an IBM-PC or compatible microcomputer with approximately 640K of random access memory and a hard disk or disk drive capble of handling high-density diskettes. BLCC and QI are updated annually (on April 1) to include the current DOE energy price projections and federal discount rates.