CHP Engines Could Drive Job Growth, Given The Chance

As unemployment ranks swell -- 598,000 jobs were cut in January -- it's hard not to look hungrily at green collar jobs. They are the hope of millions, but the reality of few. And unless federal, regional and state policies on energy distribution and taxation change, that may not change.A case in point: combine heat and power (CHP) systems. These are the curious creatures that integrate several components -- a heat engine, generator, heat recovery unit and electrical interconnection -- into one unit. They save energy and money, while reducing pollution. And they can be powered by any number of fuels to produce electricity and heat.

Given their well-documented energy consumption and power inefficiencies, data centers are often good candidates for CHP systems. Indeed, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in its August 2007 report, The Role of Distributed Generation and Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Systems in Data Centers, notes that CHP systems offer some of the best savings for many data centers. It further extolled CHP's benefits in an October 2008 report:

Nothing is easy, however. And a combination of wimpy tax incentives and out-of-date state public utility regulations mean that few of the bigger data centers have been able to take advantage of CHP. There are other obstacles, too: high up-front costs for retrofitting buildings, unfamiliar technology and the current batten-down-the-hatches approach to capital planning.

A December 2008 report from the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Combined Heat and Power: Effective Energy Solutions for a Sustainable Future, praises CHP development as "a realistic solution to enhance national energy efficiency, ensure environmental quality, promote economic growth, and foster a robust energy infrastructure."

No good deed goes unpunished, of course. The report continues:

As of October 2008, 16 commercial data centers in the United States were using CHP, representing a total capacity of more than 16MW. The mix of technologies used for CHP at data centers includes microturbines, fuel cells, and reciprocating engines. To give you a sense of how puny that number is The ORNL report notes that there are over 3,300 CHP installations nationwide. Many of those sites may have data centers within them, according to Energy and Environmental Analysis, which maintains the database for ORNL. But it also includes everything from amusement halls to car washes.

Bottom line: there's a lot of unmet demand for CHP-powered data centers, given the right environment.