Cogeneration

Cogeneration produces both electricity and useful heat or cooling energy from the same fuel source. Cogneration, also known as Combined Heat and Power (CHP), typically replaces the traditional method of purchasing electricity from the power grid and then burning natural gas or oil in a furnace to produce heat or steam. The concept has been around since Thomas Edison's first electric generating plant in the 1880s. You'll find Cogeneration systems today in many modern forms such as at chemical processing plants and the utility providers that supply district heating to buildings in major cities. Facilities that use CHP Cogeneration technology include academic institutions, healthclubs, greenhouses, hotels, hospitals, many types of industrial manufacturers and commercial businesses as well as government facilities.
Why consider cogen?  It makes sense to integrate your power and heating/cooling production needs into one on-site cogeneration system when you consider the traditional way of buying electric energy from a utility is inefficient, wasting as much as 75 percent of the energy in the original fuel due to production and transportation losses. Conversely, cogeneration systems covert about 70 percent to 90 percent of the energy in the fuel that is burned into useful electricity or heat.  
Depending on the application, a wide range of facilities that use cogeneration systems achieve up to 35 percent in energy savings. Establishing a cogeneration system on site at your facility also helps to carbon emissions and contributes to building sustainability.
And, thanks to new technology, cogeneration isn't just for municipalities and big business. Advances in lean-burn gas reciprocating engine technology, heat exchangers and digital system controls put cogeneration plants within reach for smaller organizations. Applications as small as 300kW can benefit from these CHP Cogeneration systems.
A cogeneration system starts with a prime mover that turns an alternator to produce electric power and a waste heat recovery system to capture heat from the exhaust and engine-cooling water jacket.  The prime mover can be a reciprocating natural gas engine, reciprocating diesel engine, gas turbine, microturbine or fuel cell. The ratio of heat to electricity production differs between reciprocating engines and gas turbine systems. Most CHP Cogeneration systems come within the range of 90 percent to 95 percent for reliability and availability. The most popular type of system is based on the reciprocating engine for its high electrical output per Btu of input energy and overall energy efficiency.

Determining if your facility is a good candidate for cogeneration can be performed with a quick analysis of your energy use. Take a few minutes to answer the following questions:
1. Have you taken all reasonable steps to reduce both electric and heat energy consumption at your facility?
2. Is the base electrical load at your facility greater than 1,000 kW?
3. Is the thermal load at your facility consistent and equivalent to1 million Btu/hr or more?
4. Is the duration of your simultaneous need for heat/cooling and electric power greater than 4,000 hours per year?
5. Are local electric rates high in relation to the local cost and availability of natural gas?
6. Is your physical site suitable for the installation of a congeneration system?
7. Is reliability of electric service a major economic concern?
If you answer "yes" to most of the questions, you might consider doing a more comprehensive payback analysis.
Performing a Payback Analysis.  A thorough cost analysis takes into account calculations for electricity costs per kWh, electricity demand charges, cost of natural gas per million Btu, number of anticipated hours of operation per year, utilization of recovered heat and installed cost of the cogeneration system.  A consulting engineer that's familiar with cogen systems or a rep from a system manufacturer like Cummins Power Generation can help you crunch the numbers.  
If you'd like more information, including a sample payback analysis and additional resources, please click here to download my White Paper on evaluating cogeneration.

The development of large reciprocating generator sets that can run on low Btu (dilute) methane have given us a way to harness waste fuel from landfills, waste treatment plants and coal mines.
Energy issues in recent years have focused our attention on methane as a viable and environmentally advantageous energy source that has vast global potential. Methane represents an abundant natural resource that can economically converted to clean, usable electricity.
In Europe alone, the European Commission estimates that landfills produce upwards of 94 billion cubic meters of methane each year. In the US, the EPA has estimated that landfills could provide more than two quadrillion Btus of energy per year. Currently in the US, there are approximately 400 operational landfill-to-energy projects and another 600 candidate landfills suitable for energy production, according to the EPA’s Landfill Methane Outreach Program.
Methane from coal beds and mines represents another source to be tapped for energy production. In the US alone, estimates of methane production from coal beds amount to 37 billion cubic meters per year.
The vast resources of methane available from landfills, sewage treatment plants and coalmines make a compelling case for “waste to energy” alone. How the energy is efficiently and economically harnessed makes the difference. Reciprocating engine generator systems are far and away the most popular technology being employed today for producing electricity from natural and man- made sources of methane gas. Some of the reasons for this are, the gaseous- fueled reciprocating engine is a mature technology, new low-Btu industrial engine designs are able to operate at full rated horsepower, the technology is significantly less expensive, the generators are more tolerant of impurities and contaminants that are found in methane from landfills and coal seams, and they operate at higher electrical efficiencies than turbines.
Making the case for “waste to energy” depends on engine design technologies that combat many of the typical contaminants found in landfill gas, such as sulfur, siloxanes, ammonia and acids. Cummins Power Generation has developed several technologies that help to minimize maintenance and engine overhauls due to the influence of these contaminants. These technologies include:

• Patented carbon cutting piston ring serves to break up deposits of carbon and silicates, extending the time between major engine overhauls and rendering the engine less prone to siloxane problems than other designs.
• Ferrous cast ductile cast iron pistons are used in its low-Btu engines for extended durability when operating on contaminated landfill gas. They are significantly more durable than aluminum alloy pistons.
• The engine bearings are manufactured from materials that are less susceptible to corrosion from ammonia and acids in the gas stream.
• Charge air cooler. Normally made of copper for the best heat conduction, the vulnerable materials are coated with a phenolic resin to protect them from corrosion.
• Industrial Engine lubricating oil is generally designed to be more alkaline than typical engine oil to extend the time between oil changes.

Waste-to-energy projects that utilize methane from landfills, waste digesters and coal beds are generating a significant amount of electric energy for global customers, eliminating the need for energy that is generated from non- renewable fossil sources that produce carbon dioxide. Cummins Power Generation has been involved in a number of these projects throughout the world. Recent projects include Viridor Waste Management, one of the UK’s largest operators of landfills, Salto del Negro in the Canary Islands and the Moronbah coal seam in Queensland, Australia.
The vast majority of waste-to-energy projects use low-Btu reciprocating engine generators to produce electricity from methane. These engine-generator systems have proven to be environmentally clean, reliable, durable and economical in a wide variety of landfill, garbage digester and coal bed methane projects.
If you need more details, please click here to download our White Paper on The case for waste to energy: Utilizing low-Btu reciprocating gas engine generators written by Keith Packham, Gas and CHP Cogeneration Applications Manager, Energy Solutions Business Unit, Cummins Power Generation, Ramsgate, England.

Hello World,

This is the official blog for Cummins Power Generation and Cummins Onan.

The internet has changed the way in which people communicate and interact – new means of conversation and self-expression mean that media and information are now highly devolved and diverse.

So, basically we could either have to totally ignore this medium or fully embrace it – going half-measures would have been a waste of your and our time. So, we are joining in the conversation and giving our views on the subjects we are experts – Industrial Generators, CHP Cogeneration, Gensets for Marine, RV and Residential, and much more.

We will be up front, and we will respect the values and codes of the blogging world. This isn’t a fly-by-night product related spam push. We’re here for the long-term and willing to discuss topics with you and the wider community, so feel free to join in with your views on what we’re about. Also we’re not just here but elsewhere online – be sure to check out out on Flickr, YouTube and Twitter as well, or become a fan of us or a member of the Cummins Power Generation on Facebook.

Hello World,

This is the official blog for Cummins Power Generation and Cummins Onan.

The internet has changed the way in which people communicate and interact – new means of conversation and self-expression mean that media and information are now highly devolved and diverse.

So, basically we could either have to totally ignore this medium or fully embrace it – going half-measures would have been a waste of your and our time. So, we are joining in the conversation and giving our views on the subjects we are experts – Backup Power Systems, Cogeneration Power, Home Power Generator, Marine Genset, Portable Electric Generators, Industrial Generators, and much more.

We will be up front, and we will respect the values and codes of the blogging world. This isn’t a fly-by-night product related spam push. We’re here for the long-term and willing to discuss topics with you and the wider community, so feel free to join in with your views on what we’re about. Also we’re not just here but elsewhere online – be sure to check us out on Flickr, YouTube and Twitter as well, or like us on our Cummins Power Generation page on Facebook.

Thank you very much !

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