Combined Heat and Power Workshop
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council, in concert with the
Seattle Regional Office of the U.S. Department of Energy and the
Washington State University Energy Program convened a one-day workshop ?Unleashing
the Potential of Combined Heat and Power?. The objective was to identify
and begin efforts to resolve barriers to development of cost-effective
combined heat and power (cogeneration) projects in the Northwest. The
workshop was held June 24 at the Council's Portland offices.
The Northwest is still enduring the adverse effects of the Western
Electricity Crisis of 2000-2001. Electricity rates in the region have shot
up, seriously eroding a key competitive advantage of many Northwest
industries. While the Northwest appears to have adequate generating
capacity in the near-term, new electricity supplies will be needed
eventually. Some utilities are currently planning on building or
contracting for new generation. In addition, transmission and distribution
systems are experiencing congestion in some parts of the region. Finally,
economic and environmental concerns are creating increasing pressures for
using natural gas as efficiently as possible.
All of these factors suggest that high-efficiency combined heat and
power (CHP) should play an increasing role in the Northwest's power
supply picture. There are examples of successful combined heat and power
projects in the region. However, there are also examples of apparently
attractive projects that have run afoul of institutional, regulatory or
economic problems. The purpose of the roundtable was to identify the key
barriers to CHP and to begin developing strategies for overcoming those
barriers.
Forty representatives of potential host facilities, utilities,
regulators and developers attended the workshop. The workshop opened with
several case studies of CHP projects in the region with an eye on
identifying key factors that contributed to their success or failure.
Next, participants identified barriers to the future development of
cogeneration projects. Finally, breakout groups devised strategies to
capitalize on the success factors and to overcome the barriers.
|