Texas group advocates expanding CHP

The Texas Combined Heat & Power Initiative (TXCHPI) is broadening its efforts to bring high efficiency combined heat and power technologies to its state.

In a recently published paper, TXCHPI identified several actions state legislators should take to encourage greater use of combined heat and power (CHP) in Texas, particularly in the commercial and institutional building sectors.

After meeting with key legislators last week, the group intends to pursue a CHP resource portfolio standard (CHP RPS) requiring an additional 5,000 MW of CHP capacity by 2016, step up its education of lawmakers and encourage CHP through an existing revolving loan program for qualified projects at public facilities.

The loan fund would be administered by the State Energy Conservation Office under the LoanSTAR program. Loans would be repaid through energy savings. Projects that qualify would include state government and special district buildings, including hospitals, nursing homes, college campuses and prisons, as well as regional emergency response centers.

“It is time for Texas to realize the energy security that combined heat and power offers our critical infrastructure,” TXCHPI Executive Director Rich Herweck added. “Natural or man-made disasters do not affect CHP’s reliability. There is no other technology that provides onsite base load energy with efficiency in the 70-90 percent range.”

According to Joe St. Pierre, chair of TXCHPI board, combined heat and power presents a number of benefits, including creating more jobs and ensuring energy security.

“If the amount of CHP were doubled over the next 10 years, we would need less than half the proposed central power plants,” St. Pierre explained. “We could significantly reduce capital expenditures for electricity transmission because CHP projects all use distributed energy sites located at customer premises.”

CHP technologies use engines, turbines and fuel cells to produce power on a customer’s site. Then heat recovery technologies boost efficiency by trapping the thermal energy from exhaust streams to operate equipment for cooling, heating, or controlling humidity.

By capturing the waste heat, CHP uses less fuel and reduces air emissions for the amount of useful work performed than would a utility power generation station. While the typical efficiency of a central generation is in the 30 percent range, CHP can be as much as 90 percent energy efficient.

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