Page 28 - Sustainable On-Site CHP Systems Design, Construction, and Operations

Overview 7

turbines or “steam jacks.” In the 1630s, projects were reported that used a single fire to
produce mechanical power, process heat, and heat for space heating. The first steam
jack was patented by John Bailey of New York City in 1792.
In the late 1700s, engineers and scientist, including James Watt, were working on
real-world challenges for factories and agriculture mills on how to produce both heat
and power from a single fire (i.e., CHP). Watt’s company advertised their services to
provide mechanical power from steam engines as well as to provide simultaneously
steam or hot water heating. Through the early 1800s, many engineers and scientist
worked on improving steam engines using the exhaust heat as well as the steam
itself (which was typically exhausted to atmosphere) to provide heating. Some facilities
employed bottoming-cycles when the facility was primarily interested in heat for their
process, while other facilities employed topping-cycles when the facility was primarily
interested in mechanical power for their factories and wanted to use the waste heat for
heating so that they did not have to purchase and burn firewood separately.
In the early 1800s, Oliver Evans received several high-pressure steam engine patents
and advertised high-pressure steam engines that could save a facility money by also
simultaneously providing for process heating. Evans marketed CHP systems with
some success, and the Columbian Steam Engine business was carried on by his son
and business partner. At the same time, CHP systems were also used in English
factories and were beginning to be used in other applications, and throughout the
1800s scientist and engineers continued to make advancements with steam engines,
their applications, and the simultaneous development of mechanical power and useful
thermal energy. Many modern buildings by the late 1800s used steam engines to operate
pumps, elevators, and other machinery, and virtually all of those buildings used the
exhaust steam for space heating. At the beginning of the twentieth century, CHP was
a common accepted practice in many parts of the industrialized world.
The first electric power generating plants became operational in the 1880s and most
were cogeneration facilities supplying steam heating to the local neighborhood. Some
in those communities served felt that the utility companies had an unfair advantage
being allowed to provide CHP. And, over time, small facility CHP systems found it dif-
ficult to compete economically with the large CHP utility companies such as New York
Edison, which due to economies of scale could sell its electric power and steam more
cheaply than could be generated locally.
Around the world, especially in Europe and Russia, engineers continued to improve
and expand the use of cogeneration. In 1914, German engineers were recovering heat
from internal combustion engines to warm factories (and of course applied that tech-
nology to cars a decade later). In fact, German and Russian engineers and policy makers
recognized the competitive advantage CHP would provide to their economies by
minimizing fuel consumption costs, and government agencies were formed to explore
the most efficient CHP technologies and develop industrial policies.
Many professional engineering organizations devoted some of their resources to
CHP systems including the American Society of Heating and Ventilating Engineers
(ASHVE), the forerunner to the present day American Society of Heating, Refrigeration,
and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). The first World Power Congress was held
in London in 1924, where waste heat utilization was a topic of discussion. A full session
was devoted to CHP at the second congress in Berlin in 1932.
In the early 1920s, in the United States utility CHP systems began to decline as the
national electric grid was developed and utility power plants were located close to fuel