We have been working for years to refine our life cycle costing tool. The calculation model now approaches the reality very closely. And the reality is complex. With this, the tool from Life Cycle Vision (LCV) offers a tremendous level of functionality. This article describes the most important functionalities.
All the necessary capacities and quantities of all the electrical and mechanical systems are calculated according to the applicable design guidelines (NEN/ISSO). This establishes a direct relationship between the architectural criteria such as building dimensions, form, orientation, glass percentage, insulation value, and the effects of this on the installed systems. The choice of installation concept also has a direct effect on the capacities required. With other specialised software, this seems almost impossible to model. These models also require the necessary technical knowledge. And they are very labour intensive. In practice, this leads to failure costs arising at an early stage. That is easy to avoid with this software. The time-consuming process of calculating all the installation capacities is automated with the advanced processing core that links all the installations to each other.
All the installation elements are automatically selected with the necessary calculated capacities and a very extensive installation cost database. This is used to build up the installation cost estimates for both the electrical and mechanical installations. The cost structure is set up according to the NL-Sfb structure. These can easily be exported to Excel and modified and supplemented as desired, and then added to other documents.
A highly accurate maintenance cost estimate is built up on the basis of the installation cost estimate and a very extensive maintenance cost database. These can easily be exported to Excel, and then be added to other documents. Aside from these annual maintenance costs, the replacement costs are also included. This is possible because the technical lifespans of the components and subcomponents according to NEN 2767 are included. All these replacements over the chosen operational period are shown graphically in the cash flow calculation. Furthermore, partial replacements are also taken into account, such as interim replacements of transformers for a solar panel installation, for example.
The energy costs are calculated on an hourly basis over a whole reference year. Based on the chosen operating and usage times and the yields of all the components selected, an annual energy requirement in kWh is calculated. The energy prices can be determined very accurately. This is done with the accurately determined connected power levels and annual energy requirement based on the calculation rules for energy suppliers and utility companies. This can be done for water, gas, electricity, heating and cooling. Ultimately, the energy consumption and the energy costs of the chosen building category are calculated and presented in detail. Without Life Cycle Vision, calculating the consumption rates for commercial and residential buildings is an extremely labour-intensive task and is usually done separately from all the other calculations using highly specialised software, which also requires highly specialised technical knowledge.
The whole financial calculation system to determine the net present value is also added. This makes it possible to look at all the aforementioned costs collectively in relation to each other, and it is easy to make an honest comparison of different design variants on the basis of a single value. Different variants can be calculated with an Excel file, making it possible to analyse the break even point in the cumulative cash flow. This is much more accurate than calculating a simple investment recovery time, given that the maintenance costs and replacements with a discount rate are also included in the comparison. By weighing all the respective costs, a comparison based on total cost of ownership (TCO) is obtained. Different variants can easily be copied from a reference project. The Life Cycle projects are saved from your own project database and can be opened, edited and compared from there.
If you are not using our software yet, but are interested, please register for a free demo.
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