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What Is Combined Heat & Power?
Combined
heat and power – also known as cogeneration – is
a way to increase the efficiency of power plants. Standard
power plants effectively use just 40 percent of the fuel they
burn to produce electricity. Sixty percent of the fuel used
in the electric production process ends up being rejected
or "wasted" up the smokestack.
Combined
heat and power uses this reject heat to heat buildings in
a surrounding area through a district energy system. Combined
heat and power is only possible when there is an area near
the plant that has a need for the heat – a downtown area,
a college campus or an industrial development.
Click
here to see a graphic (in Acrobat format) that helps to
show the advantages of combined heat and power when it is
teamed up with district energy.
If
one of our nation's energy challenges is lack of power, what
if we doubled the efficiency of as many power plants as possible
and got more energy for every gallon of oil or ton of coal
they burn? Combined heat and power can help us do just that
– and even help the environment in the process since
less heat and fewer emissions will be rejected into the atmosphere.
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Click
here