BLCC: The NIST "Building Life-Cycle Cost" Program, Version 4.3 User's Guide and Reference Manual.

Published

October 1, 1995

Author(s)

S R. Petersen

Abstract

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

Citation

NIST Interagency/Internal Report (NISTIR) - 5185-3

Report Number

5185-3

NIST Pub Series

NIST Interagency/Internal Report (NISTIR)

Pub Type

NIST Pubs

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.IR.5185-3

Keywords

air pollution, emissions, manuals, computer programs, life cycle cost, energy conservation, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide

Citation

Petersen, S. (1995), BLCC: The NIST "Building Life-Cycle Cost" Program, Version 4.3 User's Guide and Reference Manual., NIST Interagency/Internal Report (NISTIR), National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, [online], https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.IR.5185-3 (Accessed July 27, 2024)