A discussion about the free technical assistance that the Department of Energy provides to evaluate combined heat and power (CHP), storage, and solar PV simultaneously as part of a nanogrid (building level) or microgrid (cluster of structures) from the Behind-The-Meter customer perspective — with the Assistant Director of the program. To date, the CHP Technical Assistance Program (TAP) has conducted more than 270 technical assistance activities and has qualified 180 MW of CHP at 113 different sites across the states of California, Hawaii, Nevada, and other US territories.
The CHP TAP screening tools provide a 360-degree view that considers the value objectives of each customer (i.e. how do I reduce my reliance on fossil fuels for electricity while still being able to provide hot water, steam, refrigeration and A/C to my customers at their ultimate comfort level?) and is designed to help building owners, hotels, hospitals, municipalities and planners quickly and easily evaluate the economics of deploying solar PV, use of renewable biogas, battery storage and most importantly, CHP for their sites. The program always identify the optimal solar PV, battery system and CHP sizing to minimize costs and maximize lifetime energy savings from both onsite electricity generation AND onsite thermal energy generation (hot water, steam, refrigeration, etc.) And the tool can also be used to size microgrids to support adjacent sites’ critical loads during a grid outage.
About VERGE Guru Lunches: Join like minded attendees for interactive moderated lunch discussions around a particular topic. Each table discussion will be led by an expert or thought leader, held at roundtables of up to 10 participants. These are freeform discussions, so bring your own challenges, questions, and ideas to talk through and get to know your fellow conference participants.