July 14, 2004—Governor George E. Pataki recently announced more than $15 million to support 52 distributed generation and combined heat and power projects throughout New York State. The projects are designed to increase the availability of clean, efficient, and much-needed generation capacity, and to support the development of advanced technologies for use in combined heat and power applications.
The governor also announced that several New York State projects have received special Certificates of Recognition from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), including: a New York Power Authority project that installed eight biogas-fueled fuel cells at wastewater treatment plants in Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Staten Island; and a project that installed two natural gas-fueled engines at the Greater Rochester International Airport.
The 52 projects being funded by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) represent a total investment of $66 million in advanced distributed generation and combined heat and power initiatives when co-funding for the projects is factored in. These projects will enable commercial, agricultural, and industrial energy users to generate their own electricity, while using waste heat from the electric generation equipment for productive purposes, such as space or water heating.
Combined heat and power applications reportedly provide much greater overall efficiency than centralized power plants by taking advantage of the heat waste generated and turning it into usable energy. The efficiency of a typical combined heat and power system approaches 70 percent, while the overall efficiency of centralized power plants is about 35 percent, due to generator heat losses at centralized plants and transmission losses in delivering power from the plant to the customer.
Over the last two years, NYSERDA has funded 75 combined heat and power system demonstration projects that are in various stages of development, with 22 projects currently operating. Among the projects just selected for funding:
- NYSERDA is providing $1 million is assistance to the New York Times Company for a $4 million 1,500kW natural gas-fired combined heat and power system project at its new high performance/green-design 52-story headquarters on Times Square. The project will help reduce energy costs and air pollution, while reducing load congestion in a critical mid-town Manhattan area.
- Kraft Foods in Campbell, NY, will install an anaerobic digestion system at its cheese plant that will use whey waste to generate methane to fuel the plant’s steam system. In the process, one old natural gas-fired boiler will be retired. This renewable fuel project will generate 1,000kW of electricity and reduce landfill and disposal costs. NYSERDA provided $960,000 toward the total $2,399,979 project investment by Ecovation and Kraft Foods.
- Grand Central Terminal in mid-town Manhattan, operated by Metro North Railroad, a division of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, will install a pair of 200kW fuel cell systems to provide power for critical security loads even during a local power failure. The two UTC Power phosphoric acid fuel cells will be owned and operated by the New York Power Authority that supplies electricity to the facility. NYSERDA provided $311,362 towards the project cost of $2,075,750.
For a complete list of projects by county, visit NYSERDA.
