Facility Costing
There are 3 types of charges associated with AMOF supporting a project:
- Basic costs
- AMOF staff time costs
- The AMOF Facility charge
The significance of each cost depends on the AMOF access pathway used.
Basic costs
Irrespective of the AMOF access pathway used, the applicant is always responsible for the following costs:
- any travel and subsistence required to allow the AMOF instrument scientist(s) to support the project, e.g. for on-site attendance
- for shipping the AMOF instruments
- for insuring the AMOF instruments during a deployment
- for any consumables required by the AMOF instruments
AMOF Staff Time Costs
The number of days of AMOF staff time required to support a project will always include:
- the time required to prepare the instruments for use in the project and to check them over on their return
- the time required to quality-control the data and deliver the files to the Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA) at the end of the project
Depending on the requirements of the project, the number of days of AMOF staff time might also include:
- the time required to train the members of the project team to use the instruments
- the time for which the AMOF instrument scientist is required to be on-site in order to support the project
- the time for which the AMOF instrument scientist is required to remotely monitor the instrument during the deployment
The significance of the staff time depends on the access pathway used:
- For a NERC Grant, the cost (charged at £270 per day) must be included in the “Directly Incurred Costs” section of your grant application
- For a Non-NERC Grant, the cost (charged at £270 per day) must be covered by the payment to AMOF
- For Direct Access, there is no charge to the user. However, there is a limit of 20 staff days (or 40 staff days in the case of an application made by a NERC-funded PhD student).
Facility charge
This covers the nominal cost of instrument rental for the duration of the project. The significance of the charge depends on the access pathway:
- For a NERC Grant, the facility charge must be included with the ready-to-go (facility) costs on the NERC grant application
- For a Non-NERC Grant, the facility charge must be covered by the payment to AMOF
For Direct Access, there is no charge to the user. However, there is a limit of 20 staff days (or 40 staff days in the case of an application made by a NERC-funded PhD student).
Mobile Instrumentation
Facility instruments are placed in bands based on their replacement market value and used to determine the daily equipment rental charge. Table 1 shows the AMOF banding structure.
| Replacement cost (£) | Band | Daily Charge ex VAT (£) |
|
< 10K |
1 |
10.00 |
|
10K – 50K |
2 |
20.00 |
|
50K – 100K |
3 |
30.00 |
|
100K – 150K |
4 |
40.00 |
|
150K – 200K |
5 |
50.00 |
|
200K – 250K |
6 |
60.00 |
|
> £250K |
7 |
70.00 |
Table 1. Equipment daily rental cost structure.
Table 2 shows the cost band for the mobile instruments available through AMOF
| Instrument | Cost Band |
| 2B Technologies Ozone Monitor Single Channel | 1 |
| 2B Technologies Ozone Monitor Dual Channel | 1 |
| 3 GHz Chilbolton Advanced Meteorological Radar (CAMRa) | 7 |
| 94 GHz Galileo Cloud Radar | 5 |
| Aerodynamic Particle Sizer – Units 1 and 2 | 2 |
| Aerolaser AL5002 CO Monitor | 2 |
| Ametek CO Monitor – Units 1 and 2 | 2 |
| AQD High Sensitivity NOx | 3 |
| Ceilometer | 2 |
| Chilbolton UV Raman Lidar | 5 |
| Cimel Sun Photometer | 2 |
| Cloud Particle Imager 3V-CPI (3-View Cloud Particle Imager) | 3 |
| Cloud-Aerosol & Precipitation Spectrometer with Depolarisation | 3 |
| Doppler Aerosol Lidar – mobile and IAO user configurable | 5 |
| Flux Tower – Units 1 and 2 | 1 |
| GC-MS | 3 |
| GRIMM Optical Particle Counter 1.108 | 2 |
| HATPRO Radiometer | 5 |
| High-Volume Precipitation Spectrometer | 4 |
| Ka-band Mobile Cloud Radar – operating at CAO | 5 |
| Ka-band Mobile Cloud Radar – operating away from CAO | 7 |
| Licor – Units 1 and 2 | 2 |
| Lidar Wind Profiler | 5 |
| Los Gatos Research Ultraportable Greenhouse Gas Analyzer | 2 |
| Micro Rain Radar | 2 |
| MST Radar | 7 |
| Radar Wind Profiler – operating at Cardington or CDAO | 5 |
| Radar Wind Profiler – operating away from Cardington or CDAO | 7 |
| Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer – Units 1 and 2 | 3 |
| Spectral Radiometer – Units 1 and 2 (aircraft) | 1 |
| Sonic Anemometer – Units 1 and 2 | 2 |
| Surface Energy Balance Station – Units 1 and 2 | 1 |
| TECO 42i NOx Analyser | |
| 2 | |
| TELEDYNE T200UP NOx Analyser | 2 |
| Ultrafine Condensation Particle Counter 3750 – Units 1 and 2 | 2 |
| Ultrafine Condensation Particle Counter 3776 – Unit 1 – 4 | 2 |
| Vaisala Radiosonde – Unit 1 and 2 | 3 |
| Whole Air Sampler (WAS) | 3 |
| Windsond Reusable Radiosonde – Units 1 and 2 | 1 |
| X-band Mobile Weather Radar operating at CAO | 5 |
| X-band Mobile Weather Radar operating away from CAO | 7 |
Table 2. Equipment rental costing bands.
Observatory Access for guest instruments
There is no daily charge for hosting guest instruments at any of the AMOF Observatory sites. The only costs are the additional User Costs and these cover local staff costs, power and any additional services required.
Laboratory Access
This applies to the EnFLO COZI (CO and ozone calibration) & PTU (Pressure, temperature and humidity calibration) laboratories.
The daily equipment rental for COZI and PTU
| Facility | Daily Charge ex VAT (£) |
| COZI | £40.00 |
| PTUCal | £20.00 |
Table 3. Laboratory daily rental cost.
For EnFlo a daily charge of £70 per day is only applied to the NERC schemes (including applications to UKRI cross-cutting schemes where the application comes through NERC on JeS). For all other funding pathways applications are made directly to the EnFlo Facility and any access costs incurred are discussed with them.