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The cost-benefit analyses shall provide information for the purpose of the measures in Article 14(5) and (7):

If an electricity-only installation or an installation without heat recovery is planned, a comparison shall be made between the planned installations or the planned refurbishment and an equivalent installation producing the same amount of electricity or process heat, but recovering the waste heat and supplying heat through high-efficiency cogeneration and/or district heating and cooling networks.

Within a given geographical boundary the assessment shall take into account the planned installation and any appropriate existing or potential heat demand points that could be supplied from it, taking into account rational possibilities (for example, technical feasibility and distance).

The system boundary shall be set to include the planned installation and the heat loads, such as building(s) and industrial process. Within this system boundary the total cost of providing heat and power shall be determined for both cases and compared.

Heat loads shall include existing heat loads, such as an industrial installation or an existing district heating system, and also, in urban areas, the heat load and costs that would exist if a group of buildings or part of a city were provided with and/or connected into a new district heating network.

The cost-benefit analysis shall be based on a description of the planned installation and the comparison installation(s), covering electrical and thermal capacity, as applicable, fuel type, planned usage and the number of planned operating hours annually, location and electricity and thermal demand.

For the purpose of the comparison, the thermal energy demand and the types of heating and cooling used by the nearby heat demand points shall be taken into account. The comparison shall cover infrastructure related costs for the planned and comparison installation.

Cost-benefit analyses for the purposes of Article 14(5) shall include an economic analysis covering a financial analysis reflecting actual cash flow transactions from investing in and operating individual installations.

Projects with positive cost-benefit outcome are those where the sum of discounted benefits in the economic and financial analysis exceeds the sum of discounted costs (cost-benefit surplus).

Member States shall set guiding principles for the methodology, assumptions and time horizon for the economic analysis.

Member States may require that the companies responsible for the operation of thermal electric generation installations, industrial companies, district heating and cooling networks, or other parties influenced by the defined system boundary and geographical boundary, contribute data for use in assessing the costs and benefits of an individual installation.