Cogeneration & Combined Heat & Power

There are several industries, such as paper Mills, textile Mills, chemical factories, drying plants, rubber

manufacturing plants, sugar factories, metal extraction, pharmaceutical, fertilizer, hotels, hospitals, and

commercial buildings etc, where a continuous demand for both heat and power exists. Saturated steam at

desired temperature is required for heating, drying etc. Apart from process heat, the factory also needs

electric power to drive various machines, for lighting, and for other purposes.

Formerly it was practice to generate steam for power purposes at a moderate/high pressure and to generate

saturated steam separately for process work (heating/drying) at a pressure, which gave the desired heating

temperature. Having two separate units for process heat & power is wasteful. Because approximately 60-

65 % of total heat input supplied to conventional condensing steam power plant will be carried away by the

cooling water in the condenser & flu gases. The major portion of this rejected heat can be utilised for

industrial process heating and district heating / cooling purpose on cogeneration principle.

Combined Heat and Power or Cogeneration is the simultaneous generation of

usable heat and power (usually electricity) in a single process. In other words, it utilises the heat rejected in

electricity generation rather than releasing it wastefully into the atmosphere through cooling tower. CHP is

sometimes referred to as co-generation in short “Cogen” or as ‘total energy’

By modifying the initial steam pressure and exhaust pressure, it is possible to generate the required power

and make available the required quantity of exhaust steam at desired temperature from the turbine for

process heating. In this case the process heater replaces the condenser of the ordinary Rankin cycle. For

constant temperature heating (or drying), steam is a very good medium, since isothermal condition can be

maintained by allowing saturated steam to condense at that temperature and utilising the latent heat

released for heating purpose.
 
Back
Top