DESC Wins Contract to Provide Advanced CHP System for United States Postal Service Facility in San Diego ==>650,000-Square Foot Facility Will Generate Majority of Power and Air Conditioning On-Site
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WAITSFIELD, Vt., Feb. 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Northern Power Systems, a subsidiary of Distributed Energy Systems Corp (Nasdaq: DESC - News), has been awarded a $3.1 million contract by Honeywell to provide a turnkey on-site combined heat and power (CHP) system for the United States Postal Service (USPS) Margaret L. Sellers Processing and Distribution Center (P&DC) in San Diego, California. The facility is the main mail handling facility for the San Diego district and supports more than 40 post offices within the performance cluster.
Installation of the CHP system at the Margaret L. Sellers P&DC is part of an ongoing effort by the USPS and Honeywell to improve energy efficiency and reduce energy costs at over 250 USPS facilities in Southern California. The CHP system will be the first co-generation system installed under the energy savings performance contract between Honeywell and the USPS that covers the Southern California USPS sites. The system will also be the first of its kind at a USPS distribution center.
In total, the Honeywell-led work is expected to deliver $4.1 million in energy savings per year. It also will allow the Postal Service to reduce annual energy consumption by almost 30 million kilowatt hours (kWh) -- enough energy to power almost 4,000 homes for a year.
The turnkey CHP system will provide 1.5MW of electricity in normal operation; an amount equal to 85% of the Sellers facility's forecasted power requirements. Recovered heat from the engine's exhaust system will be used as input thermal energy for a 300-ton absorption chiller, which will, in turn, provide cooled water to the facility's heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system. The new chiller will replace the facility's existing natural gas-fired absorption chiller and eliminate the need to purchase over 165,000 therms of natural gas annually.
Designed, engineered and built by Northern, the CHP system will allow the M.L. Sellers facility to reduce its annual energy consumption by an estimated 1.7 million kWh per year. The reduced consumption is achieved through the high efficiency of the CHP system. By recovering waste heat from the engine's exhaust and using it to power the building's HVAC system, the system's overall fuel efficiency rises to approximately 77%, more than double the average efficiency of utility-produced power. In addition to the higher efficiency, the CHP system is also expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 40%.
Higher fuel efficiencies also qualify the new system for a $1 million incentive rebate from the Self-Generation Incentive Program of the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC). This program was established in 2001 to encourage on-site generation in order to reduce peak demand and avoid rolling blackouts such as those experienced by the state in recent years.
Engineered for Improved Reliability
Given continuing uncertainties over California's ability to meet increasing electric demand, particularly in Southern California, Northern's system will be designed to provide greater power reliability to the facility. In the event of a loss of power from the energy grid, Northern's control system will continue to provide power to designated critical facility loads like the sorting machines, while automatically shedding non-critical load centers within the building in order to keep the total building load below the peak capacity of the engine generator.
Ray Levison, manager of environmental compliance for the USPS Pacific Area, stated, "The cogen system is important not only from an operating cost perspective, but also because it will reduce demand on the energy grid in California."
System Details
The cogeneration system will consist of a single 1,500 kW lean burn natural gas-fired reciprocating engine, heat exchangers and 300-ton hot water absorption chiller. The current gas fired absorption chiller, which has reached its useful life, will be removed and the new absorption chiller and heat exchangers will be located in the area that it currently occupies. The genset will be installed in a sound-attenuated enclosure located external to the building, immediately adjacent to the building mechanical equipment rooms. The electrical tie-in will be at current service voltage of 12,000 volts and will enable power to be distributed to all four of the existing substations within the USPS facility.
"The CHP system marks a significant step in fulfilling our shared energy savings agreement with the USPS," said Laura Schultz, vice president of Global Marketing for Honeywell Building Solutions. "This project is a great example of the multiple benefits that a combined heat and power system can provide. It will reduce the facility's annual energy costs and environmental footprint, and it will improve the reliability of its power supply."
"Northern Power Systems is very pleased to have been selected by Honeywell to help USPS implement this important energy plan," said Chach Curtis, Vice President of On-site Power at Northern. "This project is one of many on-site systems Northern has successfully engineered to help large companies in California and other areas around the country proactively manage their energy supply. Whether for cost savings or added reliability or both, more and more companies are including on-site generation as a central element of their facilities' energy infrastructure." |
