Economic Tool Results

The results page displays the calculated economic costs and benefits of the four generation options. The key outputs are:

1. Capital Cost: Includes the cost of the AD system, generation equipment, and guideline installation costs. More details on how these are calculated are included in later sections. If a user has obtained their own estimates of capital cost for either the AD system or generation equipment, these can be entered in later sections of the tool.
2. Annual Cost: This includes only maintenance costs, which are assumed to be 5% of capital costs. Estimates of maintenance costs obtained from equipment suppliers varied, but typically were close to this value. Depreciation of the AD and generation equipment is not included.
Annual Benefit: This is a gross figure, consisting of energy bill savings, and export and subsidy income. A brief breakdown of each of these elements is also shown in this section of the tool. For the two CHP options, the breakdown only displays the benefits resulting from the generation of heat: the benefits resulting from the generation of electricity are the same as for the electricity generation option.