Final Report: Assessment of Combined Heat and Power Premium Power Applications in California
This report analyzes the current economic and environmental performance of combined heat and power (CHP) systems in power interruption intolerant commercial facilities. Through a series of three case studies, key trade-offs are analyzed with regard to the provision of black-out ridethrough capability with the CHP systems and the resutling ability to avoid the need for at least some diesel backup generator capacity located at the case study sites. Each of the selected sites currently have a CHP or combined heating, cooling, and power (CCHP) system in addition to diesel backup generators. In all cases the CHP/CCHP system have a small fraction of the electrical capacity of the diesel generators. Although none of the selected sites currently have the ability to run the CHP systems as emergency backup power, all could be retrofitted to provide this blackout ride-through capability, and new CHP systems can be installed with this capability. The following three sites/systems were used for this analysis: (1) Sierra Nevada Brewery - Using 1MW of installed Molten Carbonate Fuel Cells operating on a combination of digestor gas (from the beer brewing process) and natural gas, this facility can produce electricty and heat for the brewery and attached bottling plant. The major thermal load on-site is to keep the brewing tanks at appropriate temperatures. (2) NetApp Data Center - Using 1.125 MW of Hess Microgen natural gas fired reciprocating engine-generators, with exhaust gas and jacket water heat recovery attached to over 300 tons of of adsorption chillers, this combined cooling and power system provides electricity and cooling to a data center with a 1,200 kW peak electrical load. (3) Kaiser Permanente Hayward Hospital - With 180kW of Tecogen natural gas fired reciprocating engine-generators this CHP system generates steam for space heating, and hot water for a city hospital. For all sites, similar assumptions are made about the economic and technological constraints of the power generation system. Using the Distributed Energy Resource Customer Adoption Model (DER-CAM) developed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, we model three representative scenarios and find the optimal operation scheduling, yearly energy cost, and energy technology investments for each scenario below: Scenario 1 - Diesel generators and CHP/CCHP equipment as installed in the current facility. Scenario 1 represents a baseline forced investment in currently installed energy equipment. Scenario 2 - Existing CHP equipment installed with blackout ride-through capability to replace approximately the same capacity of diesel generators. In Scenario 2 the cost of the replaced diesel units is saved, however additional capital cost for the controls and switchgear for blackout ride-through capability is necessary. Scenario 3 - Fully optimized site analysis, allowing DER-CAM to specify the number of diesel and CHP/CCHP units (with blackout ride-through capability) that should be installed ignoring any constraints on backup generation. Scenario 3 allows DER-CAM to optimize scheduling and number of generation units from the currently available technologies at a particular site. The results of this analysis, using real data to model the optimal schedulding of hypothetical and actual CHP systems for a brewery, data center, and hospital, lead to some interesting conclusions. First, facilities with high heating loads will typically prove to be the most appropriate for CHP installation from a purely economic standpoint. Second, absorption/adsorption cooling systems may only be economically feasible if the technology for these chillers can increase above current best system efficiency. At a coefficient of performance (COP) of 0.8, for instance, an adsorption chiller paired with a natural gas generator with waste heat recovery at a facility with large cooling loads, like a data center, will cost no less on a yearly basis than purchasing electricity and natural gas directly from a utility. Third, at marginal additional cost, if the reliability of CHP systems proves to be at least as high as diesel generators (which we expect to be the case), the CHP system could replace the diesel generator at little or no additional cost. This is true if the thermal to electric (relative) load of those facilities was already high enough to economically justify a CHP system. Last, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, the modeled CHP and CCHP systems provide some degree of decreased emissions relative to systems with less CHP installed. The emission reduction can be up to 10% in the optimized case (Scenario 3) in the application with the highest relative thermal load, in this case the hospital. Although these results should be qualified because they are only based on the three case studies, the general results and lessons learned are expected to be applicable across a broad range of potential and existing CCHP systems.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- Environmental Energy Technologies Division
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC02-05CH11231
- OSTI ID:
- 984312
- Report Number(s):
- LBNL-3563E-Final; TRN: US201015%%1109
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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