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With rising energy costs, concerns about non-renewable energy sources, as well as political and economic concerns over importing energy sources from foreign countries, governments and power companies are working to improve efficiencies and reduce waste during the power generation process. One of the methods to reduce waste, is to capture heat produced as a by-product of energy generation in order to use it for commercial or residential uses.

The term co generation refers to a plant that captures the excess heat generated (for example during the burning of natural gas, coal, or petroleum) and processes it either into additional electricity, heat for homes and businesses, or heating for hot water systems.

To understand cogeneration in a very simple way, consider the common automobile. In the winter, the car's interior heating system is powered by excess heat from the motor. When not used for heating the car, the excess is lost out the exhaust pipe. It does not take any additional gas to heat your car as it is waste heat re-directed from the internal combustion engine.

The European Union has used combined heat and power (CHP is another term for cogeneration) in some of their newer power plants. The excess heat energy is sometimes used for municipal hot water systems. COGEN Europe is an organization formed to promote energy efficiency through cogeneration. Germany recently estimated that up to 50% of their domestic energy needs could be produced by cogeneration.

All types of manufacturing plants can use the technologies relating to cogeneration. Excess heat energy can be used to power the plant, heat the building, and even can be directed to chillers when refrigeration is needed. Any engine large or small can be made to be more efficient. Plants are even able to use trigeneration to produce energy, heat, and also cooling power with the use of absorption chillers.

Combined heat and energy makes sense to be used whenever feasible to reduce the amount of waste energy in manufacturing and power plants. It is not only economical, it is also a sound ecological choice for making the most energy possible out of the fuel used. In this manner carbon emissions will also be limited, as the excess heat will not require burning of more fuel to be created as well. Even small to medium sized businesses can use mico-cogeneration units to capture waste heat for use in heating the building.

By the way, cogeneration is not a new idea. In 1882 the Pearl Street Power Station designed by Thonas Edison used cogeneration to produce not only electric power but also heat for neighboring buildings.


Marianne Case
on behalf of the
BascoTec Internet Limited
Technologie Park 13
33100 Paderborn
Germany

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