Combined Heat and Power, Waste Heat Recovery and District Energy — A New Perspective on Energy
Combined Heat and Power (CHP) is... an efficient and clean approach to generating electric power and useful thermal energy from a single fuel source at the point of use. Every CHP application involves the recovery of otherwise-wasted thermal energy to produce cooling, heating or process thermal energy or electricity, improving energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. CHP already supplies over 10% of our nation's electricity, and can and should supply more.
Waste Heat Recovery is... capturing waste heat that an industrial site or combustion process is already emitting, and using it to provide useful thermal energy elsewhere in the facility or turning it into clean electricity or mechanical power. Waste heat recovery for power generation is also known as bottoming cycle CHP or waste-heat-to power.
District Energy is... CHP, central heating, and/or central cooling applied to an entire university, office park, medical campus, mixed use sustainable development, or downtown. Over 400 building networks in the U.S. already use district energy, and the number is on the rise.
All of these are...CLEAN ENERGY APPLICATIONS - a better solution for our country's energy supply, economy, and environment.
