Life Cycle Cost (LCC) Analysis; A Case for Gas District Cooling Plant

Life cycle cost (LCC) analysis is an established tool to determine the economic benefit by quantifies all costs involve in overall plant activities in terms of the time value of money. In this study, a LCC analysis was done for a district cooling plant. The plant is used to supply electricity and chilled water to an academic campus. This analysis involves development of cost breakdown structures, identification of data sources and cost model, calculation of cost estimation and evaluation of high cost contributor for the plant by sensitivity analysis. Results indicate fuel cost is dominant as high cost contributor in LCC analysis by 61% follow by investment cost, 23%. From this analysis, it is proven that this district cooling plant has good economic benefits even if the cost of fuel escalating because electricity price will also escalate and benefit this plant.