Cost Benefit Analysis Tool
This is a spreadsheet-based CBA tool designed to help estimate the financial and social costs and benefits of applying the different gas management technologies demonstrated under the project.
Introduction
The ACUMEN CBA tool has been built to be compliant with UK government Treasury guidance and could be a useful way to assess the relative merits of different gas management options. However, the ACUMEN Project Team recognise that many site owners/ operators will already have detailed modelling tools and cost benefit methodologies that they are using. We have developed and shared the CBA tool, but recognise that it may possibly be more detailed than some owners require. The tool (available at bottom of page) is intended to help readers get a better understanding of the analyses undertaken to derive the benefit ratios quoted.
How does the tool work?
After details about the closed landfill site, the CBA tool estimates the costs and benefits associated with different gas management options, based on projected scenarios from the base year (i.e. the year that the analysis is being undertaken) over a set period of time.
A ‘Business As Usual’ (BAU) condition is applied as a default option on the assumption that sites will need to be managed somehow in any case whichever option is selected (e.g. operating a standard flare, as was the case at several of the ACUMEN demonstration sites). i.e. the potential new management option can be analysed against the current ‘business as usual’ gas management option. The tool also allows you to apply multiple gas management interventions to reflect realistic landfill gas management scenarios (e.g. running a flare concurrently with a small landfill gas engine).
The CBA tool outputs a summary table which presents estimated cost and benefit figures based on the actual inputted data for the demonstration period. The financial sections are in essence a measure of the costs and income produced by installing a particular technology.
