Interesting and impressive analysis.
http://theenergycollective.com/robertwilson190/257481/why-power-density-matters
Showing posts with label cogeneration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cogeneration. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 07, 2013
Tuesday, November 06, 2012
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Midtown Developer Accuses Con Ed of Overcharging
By PATRICK McGEEHAN
New York Times
October 9, 2012
It is not easy being green and trying to keep the electric company from raising your rates.
The owner of the Bank of America Tower in Midtown Manhattan is learning that lesson. For the second time in less than a year, it has accused Consolidated Edison of trying to overcharge for the sophisticated power plant in the building, which it has heralded as the most environmentally advanced skyscraper in the country.
Last November, the developer, the Durst Organization, persuaded state utilities regulators that Con Edison had overbilled it by more than $290,000. Now, the developer is asking the regulators to prevent the utility from increasing the annual gas bill for the tower by more than $85,000.
The disputes provide a glimpse into the underbelly of a 55-story building that the Durst Organization has called an icon for its efficient use of energy. The tower contains a cogeneration system that produces electricity to run the lights and computers in its offices and trading floors.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo have called for more buildings to generate their own electricity to reduce demands on the power grid and reduce waste. The Durst Organization argued in its complaint to the state Public Service Commission that the tower was meant to serve as “a demonstration project” for such plants, but that Con Edison’s billing practices could have a “chilling impact” on the development of others.
The current dispute centers on what the building does with some of the fuel it obtains from Con Ed. Most of the natural gas piped into the building from beneath 42nd Street near Bryant Park fires the power plant. Rather than waste the exhaust from that combustion, the system feeds it into a boiler that produces steam to heat and cool the tower.
But that equipment, known as a heat recovery steam generator, is not always sufficient. When it is not, a gas-fired backup system produces additional steam to help with the heating or cooling.
Until now, Con Edison had been giving the building a discount on the gas used by the backup system. But after another customer proposed using a similar system, Con Edison executives said they should not have been applying that discount to the Bank of America Tower. The lower rate is only for gas used to generate electricity, relieving some burden on the citywide grid, not for producing steam, they said.
“If the machine is being used to do essentially the same thing as a boiler would, we think that is not eligible for this rate because it’s not helping with the electric system,” Margarett Jolly, manager of distributed generation for Con Edison, said in an interview on Tuesday.
She said a decision by the regulators in Durst’s favor would set a precedent just as in-building power generation is catching on in the city and could shift more cost onto other customers. Durst estimated that the loss of the discount would cost the building $86,129 per year.
The developer likened the billing dispute to the one that it took to the commission in November. Durst said then that Con Ed’s overestimation of the building’s peak demand for electricity had resulted in improper charges of more than $290,000. The regulators agreed, but Con Edison has asked them to reconsider.
Friday, October 05, 2012
Sewage for heat, trend within a trend
October 4, 2012
Column | Korky Koroluk
Daily Commercial News
We’re hearing more and more about mining sewage systems to recover heat. They’re far from common so far, but they are cropping up here and there around the world.
There’s one in a condominium building in Vancouver, several in China, a few in Paris, one in Philadelphia —the list goes on.
It’s clearly a trend, but it’s a trend within a trend.
Tapping sewers to obtain heat is just like geothermal energy, but instead of using the ground or a lake as a source, you use the sewers, which is why it’s become known simply as sewage geothermal.
Most of us never think about the sewage being carried in pipes right beneath our feet. It’s usually pretty warm, and we can capture that heat through heat exchangers, just as ground-source geothermal system uses exchangers to bring heat into our homes.
In Philadelphia, a firm called NovaThermal Energy LLC is doing something similar. It has built a plant at a sewage treatment plant for easy access to wastewater. The company also plans to market a Chinese system that’s somewhat like the one in Vancouver. They plan to sell it to any large buildings located near a major trunk sewer that carries a steady flow of wastewater still warm from its previous uses.A Vancouver firm, International Wastewater Heat Exchange Systems Inc., has a system that filters suspended solids, and then sends the filtered wastewater to a heat exchanger. There, heat is either extracted from the wastewater (for heating) or transferred to the wastewater (for cooling). Then the wastewater is discharged back to the sewage main pipe.
Many industrial processes use hot water, which is one reason wastewater is usually pretty warm. International Wastewater says it can reach an average temperature of just over 25°C where it leaves buildings. In septic drains, the average is about 15°C.
What we’re seeing is part of a larger trend: district heating and cooling. And we’re going to see more and more of it as construction costs climb, as energy costs soar, and more ways are sought to limit emissions of greenhouse gases.
District heating and cooling is hardly new. In Northern European countries district energy systems are an important part of heat production. Well over half of Denmark’s buildings are on district energy systems. In its capital, Copenhagen, 98 per cent of buildings are supplied by district energy. Even in North America, it’s not uncommon to see entire industrial or academic campuses heated from a central plant. In Ottawa, a central plant heats the government buildings on and around Parliament Hill.
At one time it could be even be found in small towns.
Growing up in small-town Alberta, I was familiar with the gas-powered steam plant that provided heat to the small central business district. But it was shut down in the name of progress, and individual buildings had to install their own small gas boilers.
In recent years, we’ve seen the growth of Enwave Energy Corp., which now provides district heating and cooling to something like 140 buildings in Toronto’s downtown core. And just north of Toronto, Markham District Energy now has three combined heat and power plants in service, with a fourth under construction.
District energy is growing, so it makes sense for the systems to tap in to any energy source that’s handy, and that often means a sewage plant or a large sewer main.
All this will mean that an increasing share of our heating and cooling needs will met by small facilities serving a relatively small area—a subdivision, an industrial park, a neighbourhood, a town.
It will mean more work for electrical and mechanical engineers and contractors as a changing climate forces us to seek out new ideas to replace those that have become too shop-worn to keep.
Saturday, September 08, 2012
US bets on cogeneration as Europe lags behind
The cogeneration industry praised Obama for issuing an executive order - a non-legislative directive - on 31 August that would see the number of cogeneration plants double by 2020.
Cogeneration (also called combined heat and power, or CHP) is seen as a promising and efficient technology that captures the heat generated in the production of electricity and uses it to produce hot water or other thermal energy. It can achieve energy savings of up to 90% at a manufacturing plant.
Obama's order was aimed at accelerating investments in industrial energy efficiency to help manufacturers. This could result in the US reducing 150 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually while generating up to 40GW - nearly the total volume of power supplied by photovoltaic panels in Europe - by 2020, government figures show.
"What is interesting about the USA's approach is that it is especially targeting barrier removal. For industry this is a key element of what is needed," said Fiona Riddoch of COGEN Europe.
The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) ranks Europe much higher than the US on energy efficiency progress. However, when it comes to cogeneration, Europe is lagging behind. The level of CHP penetration in European markets is 11%.
In its Impact Assessment for the Energy Efficiency Plan 2011, the European Commission identified an additional economic potential for CHP of around 350 TWh of electricity, representing 15-20 Mtoe of primary energy savings per year.
Obama's initiative will make the USA an even more attractive market for CHP, Riddoch said, adding that Europe has substantial CHP expertise and must maintain its lead in energy efficiency.
The EU had a chance to strengthen its CHP laws in 2012, when member states , after assiduous rounds of negotiations, to adopt the Energy Efficiency Directive, or EED. But the CHP industry called the directive a for combined heat and power in Europe.
"What the USA has done is give a strong signal to their own industry to keep up with energy efficiency opportunities," Riddoch said. "The target and the clear signal of concern from the federal government is a wake up call."
That signal in Europe is weaker. EU countries are not bound by a binding target, but they must carry out cost-benefit analyses for the installation of CHP when new electricity or district heating plants are being considered.
"Obama's executive order is judged by many " as having more of an impact than the EED, and actually increasing the number of cogeneration plants in the US by 50% by 2020," energy expert Randall Bowie of the Rockwool International consulting firm said.
Riddoch agreed, saying the CHP industry "was least well served by the new EED and this at a time where Europe needs to put extra efforts into supporting and growing the industrial base."
Using Obama's action as a blueprint for Europe doesn't have universal support.
Peter Botschek, director Energy for the European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC), said new regulations would drive industry out of Europe.
"Plants will not be necessarily built here, but outside Europe - and this will cost jobs. That could be the consequence of [setting] ambitious targets beyond the local possibility," he said. "We could have a binding target - but it's one thing to have high-flying targets and another one to have concrete measures which are balanced and supportive."
Friday, July 27, 2012
United Kingdom : GE s Gas Engine CHP Systems Set to Power London 2012 Olympic Games
Power Industry News (press release)
Two new energy centers in London s Stratford City and Kings Yard areas are ready to supply 10 megawatts (MW) of efficient power, heating and cooling for the London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games as well as East London s businesses and residential areas after the Games conclude. Three of GE s (NYSE: GE) 3.3-MW ecomagination-qualified Jenbacher J620 cogeneration units are powering the energy centers and generating electricity equivalent to the amount used by 24,000 average U.K. homes.
The energy center initiative is a cornerstone of London 2012 s plan to increase the use of alternative energy, water conservation and recycling to minimize the environmental impact of the Games. The London Olympic Delivery Authority built the facilities to help reach its target of a 20 percent reduction in carbon emissions while meeting the city s power needs that are expected to surge as more than 15,000 athletes and millions of spectators arrive for the Games.
The energy centers are designed to operate in combined cooling, heat and power or trigeneration mode to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Chilled water is generated by absorption chillers using the high-temperature heat available from the exhaust of the unit. Combined heat and power (CHP) technologies are more efficient than using separate electrical and thermal power systems and thus helps to reduce emissions from power generation. By using this technology, about 13,000 tons of CO2 savings can be achieved. This amount of greenhouse gas emission savings is equivalent to the annual CO2 emissions emitted by about 6,500 European Union (EU) passenger cars.
Our energy centers powered by GE s gas engines are not only crucial to the success of the London 2012 Olympic Games but also for the goal of establishing a more sustainable business and residential environment throughout the city long after the Games have ended, said Simon Wright, director of infrastructure and utilities for the Olympic Delivery Authority. The Stratford City and Kings Yard energy centers are expected to support future commercial development in East London for at least 40 years.
The first energy center, featuring two of GE s J620 natural gas cogeneration modules, is located in the Stratford City development area and will support various Olympic Park activities as well as commercial redevelopment in East London.
The second energy center, located at Kings Yard on the western end of Olympic Park, features one J620 cogeneration system that will generate thermal power for the aquatics center s swimming pools and other venues via the Olympic Park s district heating network. The Kings Yard facility also will generate electrical and thermal power for other venues, homes and buildings in the area. Both energy centers will include boilers that use natural gas as feedstock to generate additional heat to meet peak demands.
The energy centers are designed to operate in combined cooling, heat and power or trigeneration mode to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Chilled water is generated by absorption chillers using the high-temperature heat available from the exhaust of the unit. Combined heat and power (CHP) technologies are more efficient than using separate electrical and thermal power systems and thus helps to reduce emissions from power generation. By using this technology, about 13,000 tons of CO2 savings can be achieved. This amount of greenhouse gas emission savings is equivalent to the annual CO2 emissions emitted by about 6,500 European Union (EU) passenger cars.
Our energy centers powered by GE s gas engines are not only crucial to the success of the London 2012 Olympic Games but also for the goal of establishing a more sustainable business and residential environment throughout the city long after the Games have ended, said Simon Wright, director of infrastructure and utilities for the Olympic Delivery Authority. The Stratford City and Kings Yard energy centers are expected to support future commercial development in East London for at least 40 years.
The first energy center, featuring two of GE s J620 natural gas cogeneration modules, is located in the Stratford City development area and will support various Olympic Park activities as well as commercial redevelopment in East London.
The second energy center, located at Kings Yard on the western end of Olympic Park, features one J620 cogeneration system that will generate thermal power for the aquatics center s swimming pools and other venues via the Olympic Park s district heating network. The Kings Yard facility also will generate electrical and thermal power for other venues, homes and buildings in the area. Both energy centers will include boilers that use natural gas as feedstock to generate additional heat to meet peak demands.
Friday, October 16, 2009
London Mayor proposes move towards more decentralised energy
Wednesday 14 October 2009
 | |
| Boris Johnson has a target to supply 25% of London’s heat and electricity from local sources by 2025 |
Boris Johnson today outlined a package of initiatives designed to attract investors as well as help developers and borough councils to build more local energy schemes, which could included renewable sources and combined heat and power (CHP) stations. This follows on from the ten Low Carbon Zones the Mayor announced in September (see this NewEnergyFocus story).
The Mayor's office has a target to supply 25% of London's heat and electricity from local sources by 2025, but currently, the vast majority of London's energy comes from power stations miles away from the city, which can see up to two thirds of it lost before reaching its point of use.
Today, the Mayor launched a prospectus showing the potential for more decentralised energy in London, a 'London Heat Map' to help investors pinpoint specific areas for decentralised energy, and a 'Decentralised Energy Centre of Excellence' to provide expertise and support to boroughs.
Mr Johnson said: ‘I want to position London as the world's leading low carbon economy. There are massive opportunities flowing from the shift away from our fossil fuelled lifestyles including new 'green collar' jobs and financial savings from becoming less wasteful.
"We are working hand in hand with the business community and London's boroughs to create the ripe conditions to revolutionise the way we power our city. This is a fertile alliance between private and public organisations which will reap significant dividends for Londoners," he added.
Measures
The London Development Agency has allocated up to £16 million for decentralised energy projects over the next four years and is currently working on 14 projects across the capital, including the London Thames Gateway Heat Network, which is set to capture low carbon heat from Barking Power Station to supply up to 120,000 homes and properties with their heating and domestic hot water requirements.Separately, Guys and St Thomas' hospitals have launched a CHP system that is set to deliver £1.5m a year in cost savings and cut carbon emissions by 20%, while the building housing TfL and LDA staff set to have a CHP system including a hydrogen fuel cell operational later this year, reducing the building's carbon emissions by 30% from its building regulation target levels.
Councillor Sean Brennan, London Councils Executive Member for Sustainability said: "There is huge potential to get investors on board in the fight against climate change and this prospectus will prove vital in informing them about the benefits of decentralised energy and how they can get involved."
The Mayor added that a 'Decentralised Energy Centre of Excellence' within the London Development Agency (LDA) would help boroughs identify potential opportunities for decentralised energy generation, as well as providing ongoing support on procurement, legal and financial considerations to delivery the projects.
Also announced was the London Heat Map, an interactive web-based map designed to help public organisations, property developers, registered social landlords and private investors identify the potential for decentralised energy opportunities in specific areas of London.
The map includes details of major energy consumers, energy supply plants and community heating networks and heat density. It will be regularly updated and allows users to contribute content to the map.
The measures were welcomed by Baroness Jo Valentine, chief executive of London First and the Combined Heat and Power Association (CHPA)
"A low-carbon energy infrastructure can help to secure a sustainable future for London. Locally generated power at sufficient scale will notch up a sizeable chunk of the carbon savings London needs, to meet national and European targets," Baroness Valentine said.
Graham Meeks, director of the CHPA, said: "The measures announced today should be applauded. They are another addition to a long and growing list of examples where effective coordination and collaboration by partners across London has enabled development of decentralised energy schemes for the mutual benefit of residents, businesses and the environment alike."
"By bringing local energy generation into communities across the capital, London has set itself on a trajectory to become a world leading low carbon success story," he added.
http://www.newenergyfocus.com/do/ecco.py/view_item?listid=1&listcatid=32&listitemid=3096§ion=Heat#
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Leading More Buildings to Co-Generate
Energy Prices Climbing
The energy crisis of the 1970s created long lines of cars, with drivers waiting to fuel up at gas stations. These days, increasing fuel demands and rising prices are forcing the cost of everything from groceries to construction materials and other everyday expenditures ever upward. Heavy demand on the overtaxed utility grid has resulted in periodic blackouts in some major cities during summer months. Since utility costs comprise part of a building’s maintenance budget, maintenance costs for residential buildings also have been affected.
Same Problem, Different Approaches
These factors have forced the administrators of some cash-strapped buildings to take the unusual step of issuing special assessments to pay for spiraling utility costs. Boards and managers of other buildings are looking at their utility usage and thinking about how to lower—or even just freeze—their costs. More buildings are obtaining multi-year contracts for various services, but such deals are only short-term fixes for the long-term headache of exponentially rising costs.
While most co-op and condo buildings in the city get their energy from a major supplier like Con Edison (or from a secondary supplier), more buildings are choosing to generate some of their energy at their own facility, by implementing a co-generation program. A co-generating program produces a portion of the energy the building needs on-site. Sometimes in very large projects, a co-generation program can produce energy in excess of a building’s needs, enabling the building to sell some of the energy back to the utility company for a profit.
In most cases though, a co-generation program in a residential building will provide just a portion of the energy needed for running the building, and that energy will be used for the building. While instituting a co-generation program can result in a significant savings in utility costs for some residential buildings, co-generation is not for every building. Depending upon its size, the amount of energy it regularly uses, and its physical characteristics, adapting the building’s system for co-generation could make great sense. Or, implementing a co-generation plan might be downright foolish, and actually could cost the building’s residents more money.
Knowing whether your building is a good candidate for a co-generation system could save its residents money and years of hassle. Evaluating the potential of such a system for your building is not necessarily as tricky as it might seem. With the right professional counsel, a building’s management can make the right choice, either by co-generating or by sticking with the building’s existing system.
How It Works
Simply put, co-generation is the simultaneous production of two useful forms of energy from one process. For example, steam generated by a boiler could be captured and used to produce electricity or to provide for space heating in a building. In residential buildings, machines that can be used to co-generate generally run either on natural gas or #2 oil.
“Co-generation means you get two thermal products on one fuel; usually you get electricity and heat,” says Damian Sciano, project manager and engineering ombudsman for Con Edison. “It’s when you are already making electricity, and you use the heat—sometimes in the form of steam—from that process.”
No co-generation projects are entirely self-sustaining. Most co-gens will still take power from the municipal grid, at least during summer hours, but probably throughout the year, adds Sciano.
The obvious benefit of a co-generation system is that it uses previously untapped energy (such as heat) to provide for part of a structure’s utility needs. Providing the appropriate system is installed in a building, instituting co-generation should provide savings on utility bills over time. How long it takes for a co-gen system to pay for itself in utility savings depends largely on the system.
One potential feature of co-generation that can be especially attractive to those managing residential buildings is a system’s potential to work off the grid. Some co-generation units can be started independently, and be started in the event of an outage.
Co-generation might sound like a panacea for cities, but unfortunately, such systems aren’t appropriate for every building. A building’s size and utility usage are key factors in determining whether or not it could, or should, co-generate.
Adapting Your System
When a building’s management is considering co-generating, an advantageous time to do so would be when they are planning for a large mechanical replacement project. If the building is considering replacing its boilers, or its steam pipes, such a costly overhaul necessitates that all potential options be considered. In such a scenario, it might make a lot of sense to install a co-generation system.
In addition to cost, the question of utility usage also is paramount. A building’s load factor—the way it uses its electricity—is of particular importance. Determining the building’s average electrical use and dividing that figure by the building’s use during peak hours will determine its load factor.
“It helps if the building has a good load factor—that is, if the way it uses electricity is pretty constant,” Sciano says.
Other areas to examine when considering a co-gen facility in a residential building include whether there is space for the co-gen facility; if natural gas is available to power the facility; and whether the building has a central air conditioning system. A centralized air conditioning system generates heat, helping the load factor.
Depending upon the size of the co-gen system, one or more employees may be needed to maintain the facility, sometimes around the clock. Having enough space for the unit also can be tricky, especially in New York. A co-gen facility for a 100-unit residential building would need about 20 feet by 20 feet of space.
For Penn South, a multi-building co-op community in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, planned capital improvements 22 years ago led management to consider switching over to a co-generation system. The community had a steam pipe system at the time, and antiquated boilers—all of which needed to be replaced.
“We thought if we could get rid of the boilers and use the byproduct to heat the hot water system, there could be significant savings,” says Brendan Keany, general manager of Penn South.
Mike Gordon, chief strategy officer for Consumer PowerLine in Manhattan, recommends that residential buildings with a facility that creates a lot of heat at least consider co-generation. “Anyone with a pool should do it, because you can use that heat effectively,” Gordon says. “New York City intends to achieve reduction in energy consumption over the next eight years. Co-generation is often classified as renewable. It reduces the carbon footprint.”
Sciano cautions that a building’s management should take particular care in determining its load factor before installing a co-generation system. cent of the time.”
Part of PlaNYC
One of the co-generation options these days is installing a microturbine system. This equipment which is about the size of a soda machine can be put almost anywhere mechanical equipment goes, like inside a boiler room, the basement or on the rooftop of a building, according to Bruce Beckwith of RSP Systems in Brooklyn.
Using this type of equipment is actually one of the mandates of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s PlaNYC 2030 master plan for New York City. Late last year, Bloomberg announced a rule setting a standard for city buildings to reduce harmful emissions. “This rule will help us to meet our commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions citywide by 30 percent between now and 2030, and it will help spur the real estate and development communities to build more efficient, greener projects moving forward,” Bloomberg said in a statement.
Buildings in New York City generate 79 percent of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions. By supplying on-site power generation to buildings, microturbine systems provide an energy-efficient supplement to power plants, New York City’s conventional power supply. Estimates show, for a given amount of fossil fuel, microturbines generate 70 to 80 percent of its usable energy, whereas only 30 to 35 percent of the energy produced by power plants is usable.
Here’s how it works. Natural gas goes into the turbine to produce electricity and thermal energy. “Simply put, with co-generation you have two types of energy going out with one type of energy going in,” explains Beckwith. “We’re taking natural gas in. We’re making electricity and reclaiming wasted heat and turning it into hot water. We’re displacing electric demand and usage and also displacing traditional boiler use.” It could also work in conjunction with an HVAC system to provide chilled water for air conditioning as well.
A building using co-gen could operate entirely off the grid and be self-sufficient. Additionally, some of the reclaimed energy can also be put back onto the power grid helping the city prevent blackouts or brownouts.
This system could be installed in a new construction, as it was in the Millennium Towers Residences in Battery Park City, or can be retrofitted to work with the existing energy systems in a building, he says. One of the benefits of a microturbine, unlike a traditional boiler, is that it has few moving parts. It basically runs on compressed air and doesn’t need any oil or lubricants.
The system installed at the Millennium Tower Residences is a 60kW unit to provide domestic hot water to the top half of the 234-unit apartment building. The Millennium Tower Residences is the first LEED Gold-certified condominium in BPC. According to Charles Norman, project manager in design and construction for the property, the microturbine generates about 10 percent of the electrical load needed to power common areas, and heat about half of the building’s hot water. The installation cost for the equipment was roughly $250,000.
Other current installations, Beckwith says, are in a new building on Fox Street in the Bronx, where a microturbine is providing domestic hot water and water for heating the building, and a Park Avenue building, which is seeking a system for backup generation.
The city’s rule allows for microturbine systems to be installed in residential or commercial buildings provided clearance is obtained from the utility company and an application is filed with the Department of Buildings. An operational permit from the FDNY is also necessary. While cost is hard to define, most buildings will see a three- to four-year return-on-investment, according to Beckwith, with a typical service and maintenance agreement of about nine years.
Benefits & Drawbacks
In addition to the upfront cost of buying and installing a co-generation system, providing funds to pay for new employees to maintain the system may be beyond a building’s means. The cost to install a co-generation system in a residential building usually starts at around $1,500 per kilowatt. Conversion of a 100-unit building to co-generation could cost from $150,000 to $300,000, Sciano says.
Installation costs don’t account for the ongoing costs of salaries for workers to maintain the co-generation facility, however. While smaller facilities might need the care of one or a few people, a large structure will require a more significant staffing commitment. Keany says that Penn South had its system updated a dozen years ago, and the 2,820-unit community has a boiler room staff of 14 people.
That said, management at Penn South determined two years ago that the system was saving about $500,000 per year in utility costs, and Keany estimates that it now saves about $700,000 annually. Though, a building should probably have at least a couple hundred units for a change to a co-generation system to make sense, especially right now. Fuel prices and technology are uncertain and changing rapidly, and moving to a co-generation system could be unadvisable.
“If I were a co-op board, I would wait a few years to co-generate,” Keany says, adding that fossil fuel use and prices are still in flux. “Hopefully, technology will catch up, because costs are so high.”
The question of “future-proofing” technologies also is important to mull, Keany says. “The concept of future proofing [includes asking the question:] does it make sense to make the change now, or would it make more sense to wait for some other technology, such as solar panels, which might make more sense in the [near] future,” Keany says.
More Buildings Co-generating
While more buildings are making the change, the trend is fairly limited, Sciano says. Currently in New York there are about 100 “active” co-generation projects. “Active” means the projects at least have paperwork filed with the city regarding the work. Much more is entailed in the process of changing over to co-generation, which is partly why far fewer buildings install the systems.
“The projects that get done [each year] are in the dozens,” Sciano says. Whether more buildings choose to follow suit and explore the possibility of co-generation remains to be seen. But, with fuel costs continuing to rise and New York City’s push toward a greener more sustainable environment, it seems likely that other buildings will at least look toward co-gen as one possible option for cutting costs and saving residents money in the long run.
Jonathan Barnes is a freelance writer and frequent contributor to The Cooperator and other publications.
http://cooperator.com/articles/1685/1/Leading-More-Buildings-to-Co-Generate/Page1.html
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Smokestack heat: Fuel of the future?
How's this for a tantalizing possibility: rather than install solar panels on your roof, the lost heat from your furnace could power your home.
That's not yet a product, but a growing number of scientists and clean-tech companies are trying to coax usable energy from smokestacks and other waste-heat sources.
A global push toward energy efficiency is prodding more industrial outfits to reuse heat from their operations that would otherwise be lost to the skies.
Meanwhile, improving thermoelectric technology that converts heat into electricity is being fitted onto everything from car exhaust pipes to furnace flues.
It's a sign that energy efficiency, which often takes a backseat to renewable energy or alternative fuels, is getting more attention from technology innovators.
One company, GMZ Energy which was formed earlier this year by researchers from Boston College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is taking a high-tech path to waste-heat recovery.
It has developed a nanomaterial-manufacturing process that improves the efficiency of existingthermoelectric modules, which are usually made from bismuth telluride and look something like a computer chip.
Thermoelectric devices can work in two directions: passing an electrical current through a module creates heat on one side and cooling on the other. Working in the reverse, applying heat to a device will create electricity.
Initially, GMZ Energy plans to sell modules to the existing market for cooling in small refrigerators or server racks, CEO Mike Clary said. The bigger market--on the order of billions of dollars--is converting waste heat from smokestacks or industrial equipment to electricity, he said.
"Eventually, we're going to see a tremendous amount of waste heat recovery applications, but that's 5 to 10 years off," Clary said. "We have to get to that 10 percent efficiency threshold to start making it viable."
Clary said appliance maker Bosch has shown interest in making a home-heating unit with an attachment that makes electricity from exhaust heat. At 10 percent efficiency, a home could meet its power needs with the heat on.
GMZ's prototype modules now operate at about 7 percent efficiency, 30 percent or 40 percent better for cooling than existing devices, Clary said.
A thermoelectric module, which one company intends to use for harvesting waste heat to make electricity.
(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET News)The company, which got its seed funding from venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, is looking to raise a round of funding in September to set up assembly operations in China, Clary said.
It is also readying a technical paper to show that its manufacturing process, where material is milled and then repressed into an ingot, works with both bismuth antimony telluride and silicon germanium for high-temperature applications.
Make steam, make juice
Automakers, too, are investigating heat recovery through thermoelectric devices.
BMW and General Motors are reviving work in this area and plan to test attachments to exhaust pipes next year. So far, research indicates that mileage could be improved by about 5 percent, or 1 mile per gallon, on a Chevrolet Suburban.
GMZ Energy's Clary thinks that automakers' interest in thermoelectrics is one reason the market is likely to take shape. He also notes that many researchers are working in the area.
But even before any breakthroughs in advanced materials, many people consider waste heat recovery the proverbial low-hanging fruit in energy efficiency.
"The market is a lot of wasted energy, and that is, by definition, a zero-cost feedstock," said Roger Ballentine, president of Green Strategies and a clean-tech investor. "That's a pretty attractive proposition."
A traditional heat recovery system. Click to see larger image.
(Credit: Recycled Energy Development)Ballentine has consulted for China Energy Recovery, a Shanghai-based company that says it can capture 90 percent of energy that would otherwise be lost.
Efficiency, in general, is less sexy than renewable-power generation, an area that attracts more entrepreneurs and investors. But the economics of efficiency are usually better, said Ballentine, who expects to see more growth in heat recovery.
"If energy prices keep going up, the economics keep getting better," he said.
Co-generation plants, where both heat and electricity are produced, have been around for many years. Yet even though it is a cleaner form of power generation than burning fossil fuels,combined heat and power has held steady, at 9 percent of energy production, for several years, according to the World Alliance for Decentralized Energy.
Wasting away
The granddaddy of the waste heat recovery business is Recycled Energy Development, whose chairman, Thomas Casten, has been involved in energy-recycling projects for 30 years.
In projects at power plants or factories, the company places coils around a smokestack or other equipment to heat water. That hot water is then pumped back into the facility for heating or industrial processes. Or the hot water is turned into pressurized steam to make electricity in a turbine.
The amount of heat in a typical power plant that goes up in smoke is a "problem and an embarrassment," said Dick Munson, senior vice president at Recycled Energy Development, whospoke at the Virtual Energy Forum in June.
The average U.S. power plant uses three units of fuel to do one unit of power, meaning that two-thirds of the energy content is vented as waste, he said.
The efficiency of power plants in the United States has not improved in 50 years, while industry in Denmark has managed to increase efficiency 60 percent in the last three years, he said.
One customer is taking wasted energy from a steel smelter to make 220 megawatts of electricity. That's on the order of a single large solar-power plant. Through waste heat recovery, the U.S. could generate the equivalent of 400 coal-fired power plants, Munson said.
Polices need to be updated to better favor efficiency, Munson argued. Another barrier to industrial-scale heat-recycling projects is high capital costs, Ballentine added.
But one of the biggest impediments to heat recovery is changing the mind-set of building operators and product designers.
That's even truer of thermoelectric technology, which still needs to improve before more people look at it seriously, said GMZ Energy's Clary. A hybrid car or diesel truck, for example, could improve efficiency, as could a solar-thermal power generator.
"New ways of thinking like that just don't happen overnight in complex systems that have complex product cycles," he said. "As people get dialed into it, and the performance goes up, it will take off."
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10019347-54.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)