Maintenance and Operating Costs

When estimating the operating and maintenance costs for various options, it is recommended that the actual activities which are anticipated are specified and costed. This will run into the detail of frequency and duration of maintenance activities such as inspection, overhaul, painting. This technique allows a much more realistic estimate of opex to be made, rather than relying on the traditional method of estimating opex based on a percentage of capex. The benefits of this activity based costing are further discussed in Section 13.0 and 14.0. 

Fuel costs are taken to be 1.00/GJ ( 1.05/MBtu) the escalation and interest rates are 6.5% and 10%, respectively and the factor used for calculating levelized fuel and operating and maintenance cost is 2.004. 

In the early years of reactor development, electricity from nuclear sources was expected to be much cheaper than that from other sources. Whereas nuclear fuel cost is low, the operating and maintenance costs of a nuclear faciHty are high. Thus on average, electric power from coal and nuclear costs about the same. 

The final design should meet process requirements (within reasonable expectations of error) at lowest cost. The lowest cost should include operation and maintenance costs and credit for ability to meet long-term process changes, as well as installed (capital) cost. Ex(mangers should not be selected entirely on a lowest-first-cost basis, which frequently results in future penalties. 

Economic data, including cost of raw material management cost of air, wastewater, and hazardous waste treatment waste management operating and maintenance costs and waste disposal costs... 

Improving the economics of gas plant design, construction, and operations is essential to ensure the approval of future de-bottlenecking, capacity expansion, and new projects. The economics include not only capital investment, life cycle operations, and maintenance costs, but also the monetary equivalents of safety, reliability, and availability. 

General Collection efficiency Legal limitations such as best available technology Initial cost Lifetime and salvage value Operation and maintenance costs Power requirement Space requirements and weight Materials of construction Reliability Reputation of manufacturer and guarantees Ultimate disposal/use of pollutants... 

Direct-flame afterburners are nearly 100% efficient when properly operated. They can be installed for approximately 350-700 per cubic meter of gas flow. Operating and maintenance costs are essentially those of the auxiliary gas fuel. On larger installations, the overall cost of the afterburner operation may be considerably reduced by using heat recovery equipment as shown in Fig. 29-16. In many industrial situations, boilers or kilns are used as entirely satisfactory afterburners for gases generated in other areas or processes. 

Economic factors include (a) the capital cost of the control technology (b) the operating and maintenance costs of the technology and (c) the expected lifetime and salvage value of the equipment. 

Since power is a substantial component of the fixed operating cost of a unit, the operating cost would run approximately seven times more on a scrubber installation. The installation costs of a hot-rolled steel precipitator to handle 100,000 cfm would be between 3.50 and 4.50/cfm as opposed to 1.40 to 1.80/cfm for a venturi scrubbing system. Although the initial capital expenditure is high for the precipitator, if the total operating and capital costs are amortized over an acceptable period of time, 8 to 10 years, the precipitator will prove to be the. lore economically feasible choice because of its low operating and maintenance costs. 

An estimate of the cost for each corrective measure alternative should be developed, including capital, operating and maintenance costs. Capital costs consist of direct (construction) and indirect (nonconstruction and overhead) costs. 

Operation and maintenance costs are postconstruction costs necessary to ensure continued effectiveness of a corrective measure. The following are examples of typical operation and maintenance costs ... 

Low operating and maintenance costs Thickened sludge concentration limited for WAS... 

Cost. Both capital and operation and maintenance costs, including costs for supplemental fuel, are generally higher than for other disposal alternatives. 

Operating and maintenance costs for safety instruments and interlocks, fire protection systems, personal protective equipment, and other safety equipment. 

But for power station applications, the thermal efficiency is not the only measure of the performance of a plant. While a new type of plant may involve some reduction in running costs due to improved thermal efficiency, it may also involve additional capital costs. The cost of electricity produced is the crucial criterion within the overall economics, and this depends not only on the thermal efficiency and capital costs, but also on the price of fuel, operational and maintenance costs, and the taxes imposed. Yet another factor, which has recently become important, is the production by gas turbine plants of greenhouse gases (mainly carbon dioxide) which contribute to global warming. Many countries are now considering the imposition of a special tax on the amount of CO2 produced by a power plant, and this may adversely affect the economics. So consideration of a new plant in future will involve not only the factors listed above but also the amount of CO2 produced per unit of electricity together with the extra taxes that may have to be paid. 

In the unit price of electricity (Kk) derived in Section B.2, the dominant factors are the capital cost per kilowatt (CJW), which generally decreases inversely as the square root of the power (i.e. as the fuel price the overall efficiency tjq, the utilisation H hours per year) and to a lesser extent the operational and maintenance costs (OM). 

Low operation and maintenance cost when compared to high speeds. 

Consider a typical rate-making proceeding for a regulated utility. Electric utilities can recover all prudently incurred operating and maintenance costs plus an opportunity to earn a fair return on their investment. This process involves three steps (1) deter-... 

Operating and Maintenance Costs mechanical details must account for the peculiarities of the system fluids (coking, suspended particles, immiscible fluids, etc.) and accommodate the requirements for drainage, cleaning (chemical or mechanical), corrosion, etc., in order to keep the daily costs of operation and downtime to a minimum. 

The main consideration in the selection of a compressor plant is the production of an adequate supply of compressed air at the lowest cost consistent with reliable service. The installation of a compressed air system, as with all forms of power transmission, calls for capital investment with consequent operating and maintenance costs. The information on which the selection of plant is based should be as accurate as possible. Important factors to be considered are the following. 

A side benefit of predictive maintenance is the automatic ability to monitor the mean-time-between-failures, MTBF. This data provides the means to determine the most cost-effective time to replace machinery rather than continue to absorb high maintenance costs. The MTBF of plant equipment is reduced each time a major repair or rebuild occurs. Predictive maintenance will automatically display the reduction of MTBF over the life of the machine. When the MTBF reaches the point that continued operation and maintenance costs exceed replacement cost, the machine should be replaced. 

Electrodialysis is a particularly economic process for low-salinity waters when compared to RO because, although the initial capital cost may be 10 to 15% higher, it generally requires no pretreatment, it produces a higher recovery rate (around 80-85%), it has a lower operating and maintenance cost, and the membranes last twice as long (up to 10 years). 

Thermoeconomics of the LHS system involves fixed capital investment, operational and maintenance cost, and exergy costs (Domanski and Fellah, 1998). Total fixed capital investment consists of (i) direct expenses that are equipment cost, materials, and labor, (ii) indirect project expenses that are freight, insurance, taxes, construction, overhead, (iii) contingency and contractor fee, and (iv) auxiliary facilities, such as site development, auxiliary buildings. 

The investment cost, operating, and maintenance costs, and energy costs for the application of control technologies to the wastewaters of the Aluminum Forming Industry have been analyzed. 

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