part 1: overview of cogeneration and its status in asia - Fire

92 Part II: Cogeneration experiences in Asia and elsewhere
unlikely that lower returns and higher risks involved in cogeneration projects can attract private
sector investment any longer.
3.6 Cogeneration Promoting Strategy in the United Kingdom 3
The United Kingdom has a target to attain 5,000 MW of cogeneration by 2000. This would
require an installation rate of 270 MW of new cogeneration capacity per year for the period
1991-2000. According to the data monitored by the Department of Environment in
collaboration with other organizations and the cogeneration industry, good progress was
made during the first half of 1990s. At the end of 1995, there were approximately 3,500 MW of
cogeneration installed in around 1,300 sites, meeting about 5 per cent of the country’s
electricity requirements. Table 3.1 shows the evolution in the total capacity and electricity
generated from 1991 to 1996. This steady increase in capacity is the outcome of the
concerted efforts from industry, cogeneration promotion association (CHPA) and government
to promote the technology. Cogeneration technology is considered as a crucial area of the
government’s Energy Efficiency Best Practice programme which provides credible and
independent information through various media, and much of direct support for technology
development and innovative applications.
Table 3.1 Steady growth of cogeneration in the UK from 1991 to 1996
Year 1991 1993 1994 1995 1996
Total cogeneration capacity (MWe) 2,312 2,893 3,141 3,487 3,562
Electricity generated (GWh) 11,017 14,171 12,152 17,611 19,081
Most recent cogeneration figures available show that there are a total of 1,336 cogeneration
schemes in operation throughout the United Kingdom with a total capacity of 3,562 MWe. The
details of the different sizes are given in Figure 3.3; as it can be seen, the vast majority of
these in operation have a capacity less than 100 kW while larger than 10 MWe units make up
for almost 80 per cent of the total capacity. Almost three-quarter of the total number of
installations was for commercial, residential and public sector buildings. On the other hand,
the industrial sector dominates the cogeneration market, accounting for 89 per cent of the
total installed capacity. From this information, one can conclude that industrial cogeneration
schemes had much bigger power generating capacities than those in the other sectors did.
The largest growth in the number of schemes has been in the small sector, typically below 1
MWe. As many as 273 schemes were installed during 1994-1996, with an aggregated power
generating capacity of 60.2 MW, with an average of only 220 kW per scheme. As for the
larger installations, 16 units were contracted in 1995, amounting to a total of 292 MWe.
3 ETSU, “Statistics for combined heat and power in the United Kingdom”, Prepared for the Digest of
United Kingdom of Energy Statistics (DUKES), 1997.