How does cogeneration work?

Combined heat and Power (CHP) or cogeneration plants simultaneously provide electricity and heat from a single source.

Traditionally, power stations generate electricity from the combustion of fuel, with any excess heat going to waste. A CHP unit generates the electricity where it is needed and additionally gives the opportunity to use the excess heat for heating and hot water. This can make CHP more than twice as efficient as conventional power stations -  giving you cost savings, reducing emissions and carbon footprint.

Delivering low carbon electricity and heat

CHP plants gain their high energy efficiency by capturing and utilising the heat that comes from the engine during electricity generation – in this way the single fuel source provides both heat and electricity for your site. By generating directly on your site grid transmission losses are also avoided which also increases the energy efficiency and lowers the carbon emissions.
 

The efficiency of this technology has a key economic benefit – by maximising the transformation of the fuel into energy for your site, the costs are significantly reduced. In this way investing in CHP has an early payback against energy cost savings and savings continue for the lifetime of the CHP unit which can be 20 years or more.

With over 300MWe of CHP capacity in the UK and globally we have specialist designers, installers and operators who can provide you with the best packaged CHP application advice and take this through to practical implementation on your site. For some applications we can also utilise biogas, biodiesel or LPG supplies.

Solutions can include:

• Bespoke industrial solutions
• Packaged units available for rapid deployment
• Biogas solutions
• Biodiesel and LPG fired solutions
• Trigeneration

Tri generation – efficient electricity, heating and cooling

The process of cogeneration produces heat and power, however during the summer months the heat generated may not be fully utilised on site. Trigeneration is a combination of cogeneration and absorption chilling - by using the excess heat to operate an absorption chiller, which is linked to the cogeneration unit, the trigeneration CHP can provide electricity heating and cooling for air conditioning.