Pump life cycle costing

Paul Boughton

By applying some ‘out of the box’ thinking to capital investment, is the cheapest pump really the cheapest pump? Industry norms and pre-conceptions tend to lean heavily to centrifugal pumping systems. However, by looking deeper, in this case focusing on electrical consumption, a dramatic saving is clear. Expanding research based on The Hydraulic Institute paper Pump Life Cycle Costs: A Guide to LCC Analysis For Pumping Systems increases potential. 

This paper lists all costs associated with a pump’s life. These are:

* Initial investment costs (Cic)

Installation and commissioning (start-up) costs (Cin)

Energy costs (Ce)

Maintenance and repair costs (Cm)

Downtime and loss of production costs (Cs)

Environmental costs, including disposal of parts and contamination from pumped liquid (Cenv)

Decommissioning/disposal costs, including restoration of the local environment (Cd)

 LCC=C_ic+C_in+C_e+C_O+C_m+C_s+C_env+C_d

Based on the calculation above, there a representative saving for the selected utility alone of approximately 25% per year. 

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