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 General
Public Benefits
Benefits
of CHP systems for buildings to the general public include the following:
Improved
Power Reliability
Economic
losses due to power outages in the U.S. have cost American businesses
billions of dollars. The following table shows the economic impact
of power outages on some industries.
| Industry |
Average
Cost of Power Outage $/hr |
| Brokage
Operations |
6,480,000 |
| Credit
Card Operations |
2,580,000 |
| Airline
Reservations |
90,000 |
| Telephone
Ticket Sales |
72,000 |
| Cellular
Communications |
41,000 |
As
we all know, power outages and rolling blackouts are occurring more
frequently than ever before. These problems are not happening only
in California. Many other states have similar problems. These problems
primarily occur when demand for power exceeds its supply, for example,
on hot days when power demand for cooling systems increases significantly.
Similar situations occur on very cold days when demand for heating
becomes very high. There may also be local areas that are more prone
to power outages because the demand for power exceeds the ability
of the local distribution line to provide the energy. Other times
weather-related storms knock down power lines and substation transformers.
Integrated systems for CHP for buildings eliminate these problems
because power generation equipment is at or near the building sites
and helps reduce load on the power grid and local area lines and
thus, helps improve power reliability.
Improved
Environmental Quality
Integrated
systems for CHP for buildings improve efficiency of energy utilization
to as much as 85% compared to that of about 51% for conventional
systems. Increased efficiency of energy utilization decreases the
amount of fossil fuel consumed per unit of energy used and leads
to 40% reduction in air emissions compared to conventional centralized
power plants.
Also
of increasing interest, is the relationship of indoor air quality
to our health. In order to prevent the growth of mold, mildew and
bacteria, it is important to keep humidity in the indoor air to
below 60%. CHP for buildings can help improve indoor air quality
by supporting the use of a desiccant dehumidification system to
dry the air. Desiccant systems use a material that directly removes
the moisture from the air then use heat, such as that provided by
the exhaust gases of the power generation equipment in the CHP system,
to regenerate the desiccant. This provides a very energy efficient
and cost effective method of dehumidifying indoor air, rather that
using an air conditioner to "over cool" the air to remove humidity.
Reduced
Energy Consumption
As
discussed above, integrated systems for CHP for buildings increase
overall efficiency of energy utilization from 51% for conventional
systems to as much as 85%. Therefore, the use of these systems reduces
the consumption of fossil fuels, for a unit of energy required for
a building, by about 40% of that used by conventional systems. In
other words, conventional systems require 65% more energy than the
integrated systems, as shown in the diagram in the section
on basics. This is important for prolonging the period of availability
of our scarce fossil fuel resources (natural gas, oil and coal)
and reducing our dependence on imported fuel and on nuclear energy.
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