Is CHP a Good Match for Your Facility?
Posted on November 9th, 2018
There’s no lack of articles promoting the advantages of combined heat and power (CHP) applications for commercial, industrial and institutional buildings or campuses. However, few articles take the time to explain what makes a CHP system a good match for a facility and vice versa. Rather than go through a lengthy explanation, we developed a simple screen to make it easy to determine whether a CHP system is financially feasible for a facility. To make it even easier (or, at least more fun), we produced this screen in the form of an infographic.
If your facility doesn’t meet all of these criteria, it doesn’t necessarily mean that CHP isn’t a good application for you. It may simply mean that your payback will take a while longer. Moreover, justification for a CHP system needn’t rest solely on saving money. “Softer” criteria such as meeting sustainability goals, reducing emissions, energy resilience or electrical reliability can be just as important as energy costs.
Of course, there are other questions that need to be addressed before charging ahead to design a CHP system for your facility. Is there sufficient space? Can you accelerate your payback by selling heat and/or electricity to neighboring facilities? Will you handle building, operation and maintenance in-house or outsource it?
If you already have a CHP system that you aren’t using, we’d love to discuss upgrading and operating it, putting back into operation for you or, maybe, even purchasing it from you. If your facility is a match for a CHP system or you already have a central plant, let the energy professionals at Equans MEP Services show you the range of options to help you save energy, save money, reduce your risk and more.