Combined Heat and Power
By Paul Breeze
5/5
()
About this ebook
Combined Heat and Power Generation is a concise, up-to-date and accessible guide to the combined delivery of heat and power to anything, from a single home to a municipal power plant. Breeze discusses the historical background for CHP and why it is set to be a key emission control strategy for the 21st Century. Various technologies such as piston engines, gas turbines and fuel cells are discussed. Economic and environmental factors also are considered and analyzed, making this a very valuable resource for those involved with the research, design, implementation and management of the provision of heat and power.
- Discusses the historical background of combined heat and power usage and why CHP is seen as a key emission control strategy for the 21st Century
- Explores the technological aspects of CHP in a clear and concise style and delves into various key technologies, such as piston engines, steam and gas turbines and fuel cells
- Evaluates the economic factors of CHP and the installation of generation systems, along with energy conversion efficiencies
Paul Breeze
Paul Breeze is a journalist and freelance science and technology writer and consultant in the United Kingdom. He has specialised in power generation technology for the past 30 years. In addition to writing Power Generation Technologies, Second Edition, he has contributed to journals and newspapers such as The Financial Times and The Economist and has written a range of technical management reports covering all the aspects of power generation, transmission and distribution.
Read more from Paul Breeze
Wind Power Generation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gas-Turbine Power Generation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hydropower Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Power System Energy Storage Technologies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFuel Cells Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEnergy from Waste Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPiston Engine-Based Power Plants Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Power Generation Technologies Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Cost of Electricity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRenewable Energy Focus e-Mega Handbook Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Nuclear Power Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Coal-Fired Generation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSolar Power Generation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsElectricity Generation and the Environment Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Combined Heat and Power
Related ebooks
Steam Generation from Biomass: Construction and Design of Large Boilers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Cogeneration and Polygeneration Systems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAdvanced Power Generation Systems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Combined Cooling, Heating and Power: Decision-Making, Design and Optimization Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSolar Energy Storage Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Renewable Energy System Design Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Engineering Energy Storage Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Power Generation Technologies Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Energy Efficiency: Concepts and Calculations Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Power Plant Cooling Technologies Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Design and Performance Optimization of Renewable Energy Systems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEnergy Management Principles: Applications, Benefits, Savings Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Electrochemical Energy Storage for Renewable Sources and Grid Balancing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDesign of Solar Thermal Power Plants Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Optimization in Renewable Energy Systems: Recent Perspectives Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRenewable energy conversion systems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRenewable Energy Focus e-Mega Handbook Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Cost of Electricity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRenewable Hydrogen Production Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRenewable Energy: Physics, Engineering, Environmental Impacts, Economics and Planning Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Modeling, Assessment, and Optimization of Energy Systems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsElectric Renewable Energy Systems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Integrated Energy Systems for Multigeneration Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRural Electrification: Optimizing Economics, Planning and Policy in an Era of Climate Change and Energy Transition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThermal Energy Storage Analyses and Designs Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEnergy from Waste Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAdvances in Renewable Energies and Power Technologies: Volume 2: Biomass, Fuel Cells, Geothermal Energies, and Smart Grids Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDesigning of a PV/Wind/Diesel Hybrid Energy System Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Power to Fuel: How to Speed Up a Hydrogen Economy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEnergy Sustainability Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Science & Mathematics For You
Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters--And How to Get It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Big Book of Hacks: 264 Amazing DIY Tech Projects Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fantastic Fungi: How Mushrooms Can Heal, Shift Consciousness, and Save the Planet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Activate Your Brain: How Understanding Your Brain Can Improve Your Work - and Your Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Metaphors We Live By Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Think Critically: Question, Analyze, Reflect, Debate. Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Memory Craft: Improve Your Memory with the Most Powerful Methods in History Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Systems Thinker: Essential Thinking Skills For Solving Problems, Managing Chaos, Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Psychology of Totalitarianism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Free Will Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/52084: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Trouble With Testosterone: And Other Essays On The Biology Of The Human Predi Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5No Stone Unturned: The True Story of the World's Premier Forensic Investigators Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hunt for the Skinwalker: Science Confronts the Unexplained at a Remote Ranch in Utah Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Crack In Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5No-Drama Discipline: the bestselling parenting guide to nurturing your child's developing mind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Born for Love: Why Empathy Is Essential--and Endangered Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Gov't Told Me: And the Better Future Coming Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Combined Heat and Power
1 rating0 reviews
Book preview
Combined Heat and Power - Paul Breeze
India
Chapter 1
An Introduction to Combined Heat and Power
Abstract
Much of the electricity consumed on the earth is produced by converting combustion heat into electrical energy via the use of heat engines. These engines can achieve at best 60% efficiency which means that at least 40% of the heat generated by burning fuel, and often much more, is wasted. A combined heat and power (CHP) system aims to use this heat either in an industrial process or for space heating and hot water. One of the main applications is for district heating. Some industries, such as paper manufacturing, can also make good use industrial CHP facilities. The adoption of CHP varies widely from country to country. It is popular in Europe and the USA has a relatively large CHP capacity, as does Russia. The most common fuel for CHP plants is natural gas.
Keywords
Combined heat and power; CHP; district heating and cooling; district heating; process heat; natural gas; biomass; nuclear CHP; heat engine
Much of the electricity that is generated on our planet is produced using heat engines that convert heat into electrical power. The heat for these heat engines comes from a variety of sources. Most is produced through the combustion of fossil fuels in steam plants, gas turbines plants, and reciprocating engines. Energy in nuclear power plants is also released in the form of heat which is used to drive a heat engine, usually a steam turbine, while biomass is often burned, too, to release heat.
The production of electricity in these plants from coal, oil, gas, and biomass is an inefficient process. While some modern combustion plants can achieve 60% energy conversion efficiency, most operate closer to 30% and smaller or older units may reach only 20%. The USA, which has a typical developed-world mix of fossil fuel based combustion plants, achieves an average fuel-to-end-user power plant efficiency of 33%, a level that has barely shifted for the past 30 years. Other countries would probably struggle to reach even this level of efficiency. Nuclear power plants are relatively inefficient too, with typical efficiencies of around 33%.
Putting this another way, between 40% and more than 80% of all the energy released in thermal power plants is wasted. The wasted energy emerges as heat which is dumped in one way or another. Sometimes, it ends up in cooling water which has passed through a power plant and then returned to a river or the sea, but most often it is dissipated into the atmosphere through a heat-exchanger. This heat can be considered a form of pollution.
Efficiency improvements can clearly curtail a part of this loss. A plant that has an efficiency of 60% will dump 40% less heat than a power station that achieves only 30% fuel-to-electrical efficiency. But even with the most efficient energy conversion system, a significant loss of energy is inevitable. Neither thermodynamic nor electrochemical energy conversion processes can operate even theoretically at anywhere near 100% efficiency and practical conversion efficiencies are always below the theoretical limit. So while technological advances may improve conversion efficiencies, a considerable amount of energy will always be wasted.
While this energy cannot be utilized to generate electricity, it can still be employed. Low grade heat can be used to produce hot water or for space heating,¹ while higher grade heat will generate steam which can be exploited by some industrial processes. In this way, the waste heat from power generation can replace heat or steam produced from a high value energy source such as gas, oil, or even electricity. This represents a significant improvement in overall energy efficiency.
Systems which utilize waste heat in this way are called combined heat and power or CHP systems. The term cogeneration is often used too while district heating and cooling (DHC) uses essentially the same technologies. Such systems can operate with an energy efficiency of up to 90% when heat usage is taken into account. This represents a major saving in fuel cost and in overall environmental degradation. Yet while the benefits are widely recognized, the implementation of CHP remains low.
Part of the problem lies in the historical and widespread preference for large central power stations to generate electricity. Large plants are efficient, and they are normally built close to the main transmission system so that power can be delivered into the network easily. They may also be sited close to a source of fuel. This will often mean that they are far from consumers that can make use of their waste heat.
If central power plants are built in or near cities and towns then they can supply heat as well as power by using their waste heat in district heating systems. Municipal utilities in some European and US cities have in the past built power plants within the cities they serve in order to exploit this market for heat as well as power but it is not an approach that has been widely adopted and environmental considerations makes building large power plants in cities more difficult today. There are also many examples of power plants being built close to industrial centers such that they can provide high grade steam for industrial use. In the main, however, large fossil fuel power plants simply waste a large part of the energy they release from the fuel.
District heating is a CHP application that is particularly important because there is a market for office and domestic heating in cities across the globe. In spite of this, uptake is patchy. Table 1.1 shows penetration figures for the beginning of the 21st century in some European countries. As the figures show, levels range from 95% in Iceland, where geothermal heating is widely used, to 2% in the United Kingdom where there is no tradition of using district heating in towns or cities. Elsewhere, there is limited use of district heating in the USA and in Japan, and it is used sparingly in parts of China. Greater uptake, as more and more people move to cities, could lead to significant energy savings across the