What Are Examples of CoGeneration Successes

Jason Kaplan

We were able to implement a cogeneration system in a hospital that took the hospital off of the district steam loop in the city where it’s located. And because of that, by converting to a hot water system, the facility was able to reduce the cost of that energy as well as significantly increasing the reliability of the plant. In fact, by being able to do climate control and humidification and these things from a cogeneration plant that is highly reliable, owing to the natural gas grid being highly reliable, they were able to safeguard against natural disasters that would otherwise force them to use diesel generators for power at the expense of some of their climate control. So, cogeneration was successfully implemented to give them a redundant, resilient space for patients even during grid outages.

Standa Soucek

The successful implementation of CHP units that we see are in really big multifamily buildings and colleges, where the CHP unit was installed to produce heat cooling and be island capable. Meaning that if the multifamily building lost the grid, the CHP unit would be able to start and produce the electricity for critical lighting and elevator operations. We had an instance when a CHP unit was utilized over the wintertime to produce and cover boiler outage. When the boiler failed and the second boiler also failed, the CHP unit was only heat source. Because our remote monitoring technician and our 24-7-365 monitoring center was working continuously, we were able to provide heat and electricity for over 200 tenants in the facility, and they didn’t have to be relocated. This is one of the most successful stories that we have.

Jason Kaplan

Another successful implementation of cogen is in the scenario where a facility wants to expand and will need more power, but the power from the grid is unavailable. So, in circumstances where the expansion of a facility for example, would exceed the power available in the local substation of the grid, one great use of cogeneration is to provide a bridge to grid, as it’s called. Which is to say that a cogen plant could be installed in a much faster manner than any sort of substation upgrade or transmission line upgrade. That cogen plant can provide power to the facility in an off-grid situation until such time as the grid is available, then that grid can be interconnected and the cogen plant can be converted to other forms of power like a peaker plant [CC2] or standby power, et cetera.