NOx Emissions Impacts from Widespread Deployment of CHP in ...

NOx Emissions Report
The industrial technical potential estimate provided in the Onsite Energy report was
broken out by project size as shown in Table 3-1 (Elliott 2001).
Table 3-1: Industrial Technical Potential by Project Size (Statewide)
Size Potential (MW)
100 kW – 1 MW 2,050
1 – 5 MW 3,250
5 – 20 MW 1,800
> 20 MW 6,300
Total 13,400
Source: Elliott (2001)
The technical potential for CHP was recently updated (Elliott 2007). The work included
an analysis of a wide range of industrial activities common in Texas. 15 The technical
potential was updated by Energy and Environmental Analysis, Inc. (EEA) to include an
assessment of the potential for thermally active cooling within CHP systems. With
thermally activated cooling technologies such as absorption refrigeration, power and
cooling are both produced by the CHP system. This application has the benefit of
producing electricity to satisfy onsite power requirements while displacing electrically
generated cooling during periods of peak demand. The basic approach used by EEA to
update the technical potential was to:
• Identify applications where CHP provides a reasonable fit to the electric and
thermal needs of the user
• Quantify the number and size distribution of target applications
• Estimate CHP potential in terms of MW capacity
• Estimate the growth of new facilities in the target market sectors.
In this study, the Texas-wide technical potential for CHP in the industrial sector was
estimated at 4,962 MW, as shown in Table 3-2. This value is substantially lower than
earlier Onsite Energy estimate and represents acknowledgement of a recent slowdown in
the installation of CHP, which appears to be related to the volatility of natural gas prices
in recent years. This situation was thought to be further complicated by uncertainty in the
long-term viability of some domestic manufacturing facilities, which could lead some
manufacturers to question whether a commitment to long-lived assets such as a CHP
facility is warranted. The Texas-wide technical potential as presented in Elliott 2007 is
shown in Table 3-2. To arrive at an industrial CHP technical potential figure specific to
HGB, a factor derived from county level industrial employment and total wage data was
15 Elliott, et.al included the following industries in their technical potential study: SIC 20 Food, 22
Textiles, 24 Lumber and wood, 25 Furniture, 26 Paper, 27 Printing/Publishing, 28 Chemicals, 29 Petroleum
Refining, 30 Rubber/Misc Plastics, 32 Stone/Clay/Glass, 33 Primary Metals, 34 Fabricated Metals, 35
Machinery/Computer Equipment, 37 Transportation Equipment, 38 Instruments, and 39 Misc
Manufacturing.
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