February 3, 2003—Five years after President Clinton expounded the promise of combined heat and power (CHP) to cut power plant energy waste in half, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) has produced a report examining the barriers that CHP has overcome and has yet to overcome toward fulfilling that promise.
The 18-page report, titled “CHP Five Years Later: Federal and State Policies and Programs Update,” identifies past barriers that blocked the mainstreaming of CHP: Utility charges prohibiting grid interconnection; too long tax depreciation schedules; emissions regulations that do not recognize the efficiency benefits of CHP; and an environmental permitting system that is too cumbersome. Although many of these barriers have been broken, the council says, several remain: Utility practices and tariffs that discourage CHP; burdensome emissions regulations; and federal and state-level legislative and regulatory issues.
Furthermore, the report reviews progress toward decreasing these barriers and includes policy recommendations for federal and state governments.
CHP systems are more energy efficient than separate generation of electricity and thermal energy because heat that is normally wasted in conventional power generation is recovered as useful energy for satisfying an existing thermal demand. Conventional thermal power plants waste about two-thirds of their input energy; CHP systems can cut this waste roughly in half. CHP systems could be employed in many commercial and industrial facilities.
