Project Assistance

How You Can Benefit from a PRAC CHP Feasibility Study

The Pacific Region CHP Application Center (PRAC) offers varieties of services to promote Combined Heat and Power (CHP) in its service territories which include California, Nevada, and Hawaii.  The Center is co-located at UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, and SDSU.  A vital component of the services is a feasibility study of CHP for a particular site.  These studies are conducted by faculty, staff, and students of the Industrial Assessment Center (IAC - http://iac.sdsu.edu/) at SDSU, led by Prof. Beyene (619-594-7143; http://beyene.sdsu.edu/).

Since its establishment in 1991, SDSU/IAC has audited over 380 manufacturing plants in Southern California with estimated total cost savings of over $27.5 million, averaging less than two years payback per recommendation.  The IAC has, to date, targeted small and medium sized manufacturing plants to increasing their ability to effectively compete in the national and global marketplace.  In addition, reducing energy use helps customers to avoid high demand charges and helps level Southern California utility peaking.  The operational goal of the SDSU IAC is to provide both on-site and follow-up services in a timely and thorough manner that reflects the overall IAC record for quality that comes with our academic mission.  Nationally, the IAC program has established a record of quality service that has cost-effectively improved the energy efficiency and performance of over 4000 manufacturing plants.

Through the PRAC, feasibility assessments are now being offered to commercial sector customers as well as industrial customers. 

The feasibility study has three distinct phases:

1. Pre-audit data collection, primarily utility bills for 12 consecutive months, a list of major equipment, etc.
2. Site visit by SDSU/IAC engineers and staff
3. Written report with detail recommendations.  The feasibility report may also contain valuable information regarding incentives and regulatory issues.

About 55% of the savings estimated in SDSU/IAC studies come from CHP related recommendations.  Besides, almost all savings amounting to one million or more kWh/yr come from CHPs.  In spite of such great opportunities emanating from use of available waste heat, and in spite of the fact that CHP enjoys some level of support through State incentives, its implementation has been slow even for cases where the savings are large and the payback is short.  According to Energy Information Agency (EIA), by 1996, the US had an estimated 51 GW of installed CHP capacity, about 6% of the total US electric generation, much lower than that of Europe which has 9% CHP, and much lower than that of Denmark at 40%.  Despite some disagreements on estimated rate of growth of CHPs in the USA, there is a consensus on at least doubling the current CHP output by 2010.  The PRAC is pleased to be part of this mission.

PRAC can help you assess whether or not CHP is right for you.  A limited number of high value feasiblity assessments will be provide by the PRAC each year.  If you would like to learn more about what these feasibility studies can do and to see an example of what a typical assessment report looks like see the following links

The Link to DG/CHP databases:
    ASERTTI database: http://www.dgdata.org
    EEA-Inc database: http://www.eea-inc.com/chpdata/index.html