Are you getting the most from your CHP?

By Onsite Energy Projects

We visit a lot of customer sites and am often struck that the heat from CHP is not being used, or that they have operating problems with the CHP and their returns aren’t what they expected.

I equally see CHP vendors and other proposals to customers that advocate a power only solution, but fail to mention the CO₂ consequences or IMPORTANTLY the benefits they are missing if they were to achieve Good Quality CHP (GQCHP).

Why is this using the heat important ?

• 50% of the energy being produced by the CHP is heat – so not using it just wastes it. It also means your CO₂emissions will be around 70% higher if you only use the power than just consuming grid power.  If you can use the heat, you can achieve overall CO₂
• If you can use enough of the heat for useful purposes you can reduce your electricity and / or gas consumption. You can also qualify for exemption from Climate Change Levy (CCL) on your gas costs.   For a 2.0 MW CHP that is worth about £160,000 this year – BUT the CCL rates are going up and by 2025 that saving in CCL will be worth £320,000 a year.

So what can you use heat for ?  Well literally you can apply the CHP heat to provide anything from +270^oC to -40^oC.  So anything from cold stores, refrigerated food manufacturing, cheese maturing, swimming pools to steam intensive manufacturing and even chemicals, ceramics or glass manufacturing with high temperature furnaces can benefit from CHP.

For one of our clients, we have identified a way to save over 2,000,000 kWh of electricity and 12,000,000 kWh of gas using the waste heat from the CHP – with savings of over £450,000.  For another in plastic injection moulding, we can save around 30% of the costs by using the heat.

This is the reason Onsite Energy Projects exists – we help businesses implement the full potential of both energy efficiency and on-site generation measures.  We recognised the challenge of capex availability and can provide a no-capex, off-balance sheet solution.

If you would like to know more email us at info@on-site.energy or call on 0161 444 9989.

Onsite Energy Projects provides energy savings and energy generation solutions to energy intensive businesses, without capex if required.