Page 411 - Sustainable On-Site CHP Systems Design, Construction, and Operations

384 Ca s e S t u d y 5

Regulation and Innovation
There are improvements in many headline distributed resource technologies; now vital
system innovation is to drive familiar technologies like cogeneration to the tipping
point. Given geopolitical conditions, energy and homeland security are not that far
apart. The real challenges may not lie in the physics but in the politics. Standards like
Article 708 can shape a new market niche for CHP.
Developing methods for the possibilities presented in this chapter will require us to
look in many places for inspiration and tools. Other European countries, such as The
Netherlands and Denmark have accelerating success with CHP.
As a final, specific, example consider the borough of Woking, a city of 90,000 in the
south of England, (made famous as the city where Martians first landed in H. G. Wells
science fiction classic, War of the Worlds) installed a CHP regime in 2006 that provides
combined heat and power to civic offices, a local parking lot, two hotels, and leisure
centers in its downtown development district. It features a 1000-kW, a 950-kW genera-
tor, a 200-kW fuel cell, and a number of photovoltaic cells. It is run by a private, for-
profit energy service company. 15
Why district heating has not caught on in the United States is a Rorschach test of
perspective. The first commercial power plant in the United States (built by Edison in
1882) actually was a cogeneration plant. Some have lamented the absence of a single
project “champion” like Edison at the local level; a profit-minded personality respon-
sible for matching capital opportunities, for purchasing commercial energy inputs, grid
power, generating equipment, and local opportunity fuels. Others blame the “BANANA”
syndrome in which developers are met with community resistance that insists: “build
absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone.”
If we are serious about power security, we should not waste this moment. We should
work the generation and delivery mix from both ends: CHP up to the grid, and from the
grid down to CHP. The ultimate destination should be a stable point somewhere the
thermal and electric macro- and microgrids synergistically support each other.

References
1. Connecticut: Capstone Turbine Case Study of East Hartford High School, 2006, by
United Technologies Power Company.
2. State of New York Public Service Law A.10438 (Kavanagh)/S.3433 (La Valle)—
Facilities of Refuge (June 2008) (c) City of Chicago Preon Power Case Study (2008):
available at www.preon.com/microturbines.php. Last accessed in 2008.
3. Town Epping, New Hampshire, case study: available at www.nh.gov/oep/pro-
grams/MRPA/conferences/documents/IIIB-Fall06-Mitchell.pdf. Last accessed in
2008.
4. NFPA 70-2008: National Electric Code, National Fire Protection Association, Quincy,
MA.
5. M. A. Anthony, “Talkin’ NEC 708,” Consulting-Specifying Engineer, May 2007. Oak
Brook, Illinois, IL: Reed Business Information.
6. M. A. Anthony, R. G. Arno, and E. Stoyas, “Article 708: Critical Operations Power
Systems,” Electrical Construction & Maintenance, November 1, 2007. Overland Park,
Kansas, KS: Penton Media.