With energy costs rising, it may be prudent for owners and developers to take a good hard look at the benefits of a cogeneration system for a new or retrofitted commercial office building.
Cogeneration systems offer a host of advantages, enabling an owner to gain a degree of energy independence, while improving power quality, reliability and lowering overall costs.
Simply put, cogeneration is the simultaneous generation of electric power and useful heat that can be used to power, heat and/or cool a building or industrial facility. It has been most prevalent in large-scale applications, used to generate energy for industrial complexes, college campuses, hospitals and commercial buildings in campus-like settings, where there is considerable power and thermal demand. However, as the technology improves-compact and modular and therefore cheaper to install--cogeneration is gaining in popularity for use in high-rise commercial office buildings.
Cogeneration can be a fully self-reliant energy source, generating enough electric power onsite for the entire building, while capturing the waste heat from the generating equipment usually a gas reciprocating engine, combustion turbine, micro-turbine or fuel cell. The recovered waste heat is "free energy" which can be used for space heating, domestic hot water, and space cooling.
