Utility interconnection and tariff practices have long been identified as major barriers to expanded CHP, and while many states are making positive progress on CHP policies, significant barriers still stunt the realization of CHP’s nationwide potential, the ACEEE reports.
The ACEEE report focuses on interconnection and tariff practices for key utilities, as well as their friendliness in general to CHP projects. It exposes barriers to entry for proposed CHP facilities, highlights the need for a national interconnection standard, and illustrates the existing hierarchy regarding the progressiveness of CHP policies on a state-by-state and regional basis.
The report also identifies major utilities nationwide and reviews them systematically, placing them into a four-tiered ranking system based on their friendliness to CHP. The report reviews recent developments in CHP policy and markets, explores several emerging market trends, and makes some policy recommendations to address these barriers.
“This summer’s record heat wave dramatizes the need for CHP, as outages afflict New York City, St. Louis, and California. CHP projects not only reduce the risk of blackouts, they lower electricity and natural gas prices, and reduce air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions.” says Susanne Brooks, lead author and a research staff member with the Industry Program team at ACEEE.
CHP systems, also known as cogeneration, generate electricity and thermal energy in a single, integrated system. These systems are more energy efficient than separate generation of electricity and thermal energy because heat normally wasted in conventional power generation is recovered as useful energy for thermal demand such as steam, process heat, or space heating and cooling.
The ACEEE’s report, Combined Heat and Power: Connecting the Gap between Markets and Utility Interconnection and Tariff Practices (Part II) is available for free download at their Web site
