General Public - Technology Status

The development of new "on-site" and "near-site" distributed power generation technologies, such as advanced natural gas turbines and reciprocating engines, microturbines, and fuel cells, are opening up new opportunities for not only improving power reliability for buildings but also improving the environment while reducing energy costs.

Opportunities for reducing energy usage and costs for buildings come from integrating buildings' cooling, heating and electrical energy needs with distributed generation. The heat released from the electric generation equipment can be used for heating buildings, producing hot water or steam, or to "drive" thermally-activated chillers or desiccant dehumidification systems. The types of equipment necessary to create such a CHP system are commercially available from many manufacturers in the U.S.

CHP systems are currently used throughout the United States at university campuses, military bases, hospitals, and hotels. The systems are constructed to use IC engines, gas turbines, microturbines, or fuel cells to produce electricity. The electrical output from these devises is conditioned by power electronics to be identical to electricity available from local utilities. Waste heat from power generators is recovered to produce domestic hot water, hot water or steam for heating or to drive thermally-activated equipment for air conditioning and dehumidification. While all of the necessary components are commercially available, integrating them into a CHP system currently requires custom engineering and installation of components purchased from separate contractors. The U.S. Department of Energy has initiated efforts toward developing modular packaged CHP systems that eliminate much of the time and a significant part of the cost for implementing CHP systems.

Work is now in progress, by at least twelve U.S. companies, to develop "Ready to Go" modular packaged systems to reduce total system costs, improve overall energy efficiency, and reduce operating and maintenance costs. Designing "Ready to Go" systems for CHP systems is critical to reducing the time and effort required to integrate system components. Universal connection standards would greatly simplify installation and maintenance-and encourage acceptance of the technology by the architectural and engineering community. Simplified, pre-engineered, skid-mounted CHP equipment would make building owners responsible only for connecting power, piping, or ducting. Controls may be connected to a local network, permitting onsite personnel to operate the equipment directly from a desktop PC.

A CHP Integration Test Center has been established at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD. The objective of the center is to create a new understanding of how to integrate CHP into buildings. DOE's Office of Power Technologies, Office of Distributed Energy Resources (DER), and CHP Program, and the University of Maryland's Center for Environmental Energy Engineering cosponsor the center. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory provide technical support. Several gas utilities and distributed generation, CHP equipment, and controls manufacturers also participate in the test bed project. You are welcome to take a virtual tour of the test center.