dBCAD is a noise studio for battery-storage developers. It runs the night case, names the rulebook behind every number, and never takes the position that is the reader’s to take.
A battery yard fails on noise long before it fails on anything else. The night limit at the nearest home is usually the binding constraint, and a noise finding late in permitting is the kind of finding that sends a layout back to the drawing board. The only thing worse than a late finding is a finding that gets challenged on the quality of the inputs: a single-point shortcut, manufacturer data with no octave bands, no stated uncertainty, no record of the weather the model was run against.
dBCAD exists to close both gaps in one place. Put the yard on the real site in 3D, run sound from every unit to every home with ISO 9613-2 per octave band, and read the margin against the local night limit at each receptor. Day, evening and night are separate periods. Night drives the verdict.
A noise figure is worth sending only if the reader can find out where it came from and what it did not have.
Who it is for: utility-scale and commercial battery-storage developers, EPC and origination teams; acoustic consultants join as a second seat and get a clean model to check, not a black box.
Five rules the studio keeps — and the on-screen behaviour that proves it.
The studio reads exceeds or meets the night limit at receptor X by Y dB. The verdict carries the method and the uncertainty. The developer’s acoustician signs; dBCAD does not sign or take the position of signatory.
On screen: no badge, stamp or seal anywhere on a project result.
A level is dB(A) at a receptor height and a façade or boundary. A limit carries the rulebook, the article, the period and the zone. Open any read-out to see the basis the number is on and the source it came from.
On screen: every read-out shows value · unit · basis · source, never a bare number.
Day, evening and night are separate periods. The verdict is driven by night, because the night limit is what decides the yard. Day numbers are present in the studio, the report and the timeline.
On screen: night is the default period in the verdict; the day/evening/night timeline shows the period the level belongs to.
Every unit carries an uncertainty class: A (sound power per face, ±1.5 dB), B (octave-band sound power, ±2.5 dB), C (one dB(A) figure at a distance, ±4 dB), U (nothing usable: the library default plus 3 dB, labelled).
On screen: the class (A/B/C/U) sits next to every unit in the schedule and the report.
The studio gives the acoustician a clean model to check: the schedule, the run, the per-receptor readings and the report. They replace source data where it is weak, they sign, and the model is theirs — not dBCAD’s.
On screen: the report carries the acoustician’s signature block; the studio carries none.
Five rulebooks are written down. Each one names the instrument, the night period, the zone limits and the receptor point and height. A rule is shown as unverified until a person has checked it against the official text.
| Country | Instrument | Night period | Receptor point |
|---|---|---|---|
| Germany | TA Lärm 2017 | 22:00–06:00 | façade, 4.0 m, 0.5 m in front of the window |
| Netherlands | Omgevingswet (Bkl) | 23:00–07:00 | façade, 5.0 m |
| France | Arrêté du 23 janvier 1997 | 22:00–07:00 | property boundary, 1.5 m, plus rise over background at homes |
| Flanders (Belgium) | VLAREM II, chapter 4.5 | 22:00–07:00 | façade, 4.0 m |
| Spain | Real Decreto 1367/2007 | 23:00–07:00 | façade, 4.0 m |
| The five instruments are loaded today. Germany (TA Lärm) was checked against the primary text on 2026-10-13; the other four are shown as unverified until each has been checked against the official text. We add countries on user pull, never on marketing pull. | |||
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Request access to open the example project, follow any reading back to the engine, and read the night limit against the margin at every home.
