- How is payback on refrigeration equipment calculated?
- Divide net annual benefit — recovered spoilage margin, added throughput, energy and maintenance savings — by total installed CAPEX. NPV and IRR then test whether that cash flow beats your cost of capital over the equipment life.
- What discount rate should I use?
- Use your actual cost of capital. Corporate buyers commonly model 8–12%; projects in higher-risk or high-inflation markets are often tested at 15–20%. Run an optimistic, base and pessimistic scenario rather than one number.
- What lifetime should I assume?
- Insulated envelopes and civil works are usually modelled over 20–25 years, refrigeration plant over 12–15 years, and controls, MHE and monitoring over 7–10 years. Mixing them into one lifetime distorts IRR.
- How do I validate the assumptions?
- Send the model output as a structured RFQ through ColdMatch; supplier quotes on the same scope replace assumed CAPEX and energy figures with real numbers before you commit.
- What goes into the annual benefit?
- The margin you stop losing: spoilage avoided × product value, plus measurable energy and maintenance savings and any capacity gain you can actually sell. Do not count projected new sales and throughput gains twice — count the margin once, on the conservative side.
- Does the model include taxes, working capital or incentives?
- No. It compares pre-tax equipment cash flows so results stay comparable across countries and financing structures. Add your local tax treatment, incentives and working-capital effects separately, or have your accountant adjust the cash flow before the investment committee sees it.
- Which assumptions move the result the most?
- Current spoilage rate, the seasonal price spread and installed CAPEX. A two-point change in spoilage or the discount rate can move payback by more than a year — run optimistic, base and pessimistic scenarios before presenting a single number.
