The program was developed to support LCC evaluations, which are required for all Federal building construction projects. The program is also available to the private sector. BLCC is used to evaluate life-cycle costs for a building to evaluate the impact of energy and water cost saving measures on life-cycle costs. It can provide economic analysis for different project evaluation environments, including federal government and private sector projects with taxes, and general projects that do not require tax analysis or specific LCC guidelines. BLCC allows users to compare life-cycle costs for various energy and water conservation measures with user-supplied energy and/or water usage rates and prices. It allows users to decide between construction options (e.g., whether to use a higher initial cost energy system to reduce energy costs throughout the building life). Costs of different options can be compared. BLCC computes life-cycle costs, savings-to-investment ratio, net savings, internal rate of return, and cash flow analysis for project alternatives. Up to 99 alternative designs can be evaluated simultaneously. Six reports including reports by project alternative and reports comparing project alternatives can be generated. BLCC complies with American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standards related to building economics. Other software that is included on the BLCC diskette:
ERATES is another stand-alone program that can be used for generating block-rate, time-of-use rate and demand-rate schedules for energy prices, which are further used to compute monthly and annual electricity costs. BLCC and QI can also compute annual and kWh and kW demand charges with monthly block-rate schedules imported from ERATES. This program is included on a separate diskette.
BLCC and QI 2.0 are compatible with ASEAM (for whole building analysis) as well as with Motor Master (for motor replacements). The Federal version comes with the required federal discount rates and is revised annually. The private sector version allows user-defined discount rates. BLCC is menu-driven (not Windows-based) with data entry screens. There is no cost database, and users need to input the required cost information, including capital and O&Mcosts, and utility costs. Users can define up to six components in a project, which may enable the incorporation of additional cost categories, such as less tangible costs.
All these programs were developed under sponsorship of the Federal Energy Management Program. They all include user's guides. The BLCC guide includes information on QI. The program is free to Federal users, and private users pay some nominal charges. BLCC is updated every October. The current version is 4.23-95. BLCC Version 4.3-96 will include enhancements such as the ability to work with DOD's ECIP (Energy Conservation Investment Program) reporting requirements, and an improved ability for dealing with air pollution emissions (related to energy use).
Software purchase by Federal facilities and contractors
Advanced Sciences, Inc. (Arlington, VA):703-243-4900
Software purchase by other groups
Energy Information Services (St. Johnsbury, VT):802-748-5148
FlowSoft (St. Charles, MO): 314-441-1022
NTIS Accession #: PB91-507970/XAB
Information on DOE sponsored LCC workshops conducted by NIST
US Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technologies
Computing and Applied Mathematics Laboratory, Office of Applied Economics
Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899
301-975-6132
Steve Petersen
301-975-6136
Instructional videos produced by NIST in the series "Least-Cost Energy Decisions for Buildings":
Video Transfer Inc. (Rockville, MD):301-881-0270
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