The Environmental Potential
Cogeneration, also known as combined heat and power or CHP, is essentially the recycling of energy. Cogeneration facilities produce electricity, then capture the waste heat of that process and use it to make heat for a building. In doing so, cogeneration can achieve efficiencies of 65 to 90 percent — compared with approximately 33 percent with central generation.
An estimated 73 gigawatts of cogeneration capacity is potentially available by 2010. This would almost double the existing cogeneration capacity today.
Today, cogeneration in the United States saves building and industry owners more than $5 billion a year in energy costs.
In total, expanding cogeneration to the extent possible in this country could cut in half the amount of fossil fuels burned annually by the power industry.
Already, CHP systems — which provide only 8 percent of the country’s electricity:
- Decrease energy use by almost 1.3 trillion British Thermal Units or BTUs per year
- Reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by 0.4 million tons per year
- Reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by more than 0.9 million tons per year
A smart grid will also reduce our nation’s dependence on fossil fuels by making it easier to integrate power flows from wind farms, solar facilities and other renewable power sources into the overall electricity system.
