Page 24 - Sustainable On-Site CHP Systems Design, Construction, and Operations

CHAPTER 1

Overview

Lucas B. Hyman

Milton Meckler

ombined heat and power (CHP), also known as cogeneration as well as several other
names, is the simultaneous production of heat and the generation of power
C(typically electric power) from a single fuel source and which, as will be seen,
also builds on the convergence and integration of most state-of-the-art engineering
disciplines. On-site CHP is a time-tested, proven technology that offers many important
benefits to building and facility owners and operators, to local and regional utility systems,
to a country’s economic competitiveness and security, and to human society as a whole.
Sustainable on-site CHP’s important benefits include
• Increased total system thermodynamic efficiency.
• Lowered overall facility energy consumption costs.
• Improved overall facility reliability.
• Reduced electricity demand on constrained utility grid and fully loaded generation
equipment.
• Reduced source energy use (i.e., total fuel consumption).
• Reduced total CO emissions, which have been linked to global warming.
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• Ability to use biofuels, which are sustainable and essentially carbon neutral.

As discussed in Chap. 2, CHP can benefit a variety of facilities and multiple tens of
thousands of megawatts (MW) of CHP capacity have been installed throughout the
industrialized world in a wide variety of facilities including
• District energy systems
• Universities and colleges
• Hospitals
• Municipal centers
• Commercial campuses
• Large commercial buildings

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