What if a technology could cut energy costs by 40 percent, reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent, increase energy efficiency by 20 percent, and pay for itself in less than five years? Wouldn't manufacturers, universities, and other institutions rush to buy it? Wouldn't local, state, and federal governments support its increased use? Such a technology exists — we call it Combined Heat and Power or "CHP" — but it has received little recognition. In fact, CHP sales declined in 1997, largely because of uncertainties associated with electric utility restructuring, increased problems obtaining environmental permits, and rising costs and difficulties in dealing with local utilities.
Conventional electricity generation is inherently inefficient, converting only about a third of the fuel's potential energy into usable energy. CHP — which produces both electricity and useable heat — converts as much as 90 percent of the fuel into usable energy. This intrinsic efficiency means CHP is better for the bottom line and the environment.
Though the basic CHP concept has been understood for over a century, new CHP technologies greatly increase the technology's attractiveness. In the 1970s President Jimmy Carter coined the word "cogeneration" to describe using a steam boiler to generate electricity and heat simultaneously. Modern systems span a wider range of technologies and are far more efficient and versatile. The ratio of electrical and mechanical energy to thermal energy can be easily varied in systems. Many new systems require little operator attention or maintenance. This flexibility and simplicity, along with the technology's falling installation and operating costs, should open new markets for CHP.
CHP also has great potential for the environment. The Energy Innovations study, published by five public interest groups in the spring of 1997, identified CHP as one of the most important long-term opportunities for reducing U.S. industrial carbon emissions and criteria air pollutants. Later that year, Scenarios of U.S. Carbon Reductions, a study in which five Department of Energy laboratories examined more than 200 technologies, found that just three CHP-type applications — fuel cells, advanced turbines, and integrated combined cycle technologies — accounted for nearly 10 percent of the study's projected carbon savings. Both reports also illustrate just how inefficient, polluting, and carbon-intensive our current electric system is. This system, which remains mainly a regulated monopoly, is no more efficient now than in 1963. |
