Co-Generation: CA, TX, LA, And ND Lead The Way -- October 28, 2015

FuelFix is reporting:

The nation’s power grid is changing more rapidly than ever and municipalities, communities and businesses are turning more to greener sources of distributed power with electricity produced where it is consumed.

The Pew Charitable Trusts’ “Distributed Generation: Cleaner, Cheaper, Stronger” highlights the growth of wind and solar power, but also makes the case for lesser-known power sources like combined heat and power and waste heat to power. 

California and Texas are primed to lead the way.

Combined heat and power, or cogeneration, involves generating electricity while recovering otherwise wasted thermal energy to produce additional power. Waste heat to power, or WHP, is the process of capturing discarded heat from an existing industrial process and using that heat to generate power.

Total cogeneration and WHP power capacity in the United States is currently projected to grow by 18.3 gigawatts through 2030, rising from 83.3 gigawatts to 101.6 gigawatts, the report states. California could add 5.4 gigawatts and account for almost one-third of the new capacity, while Texas would add 2.1 gigawatts.

California and Texas are currently the only states with more than 10 gigawatts of cogeneration and WHP power. Louisiana and North Dakota are the only other states with at least 5 gigawatts.

This is all well and good but it seems a lot of this "stuff" was dreamt up when it looked like we were at "Peak Oil" and destined to be dependent on foreign natural gas. Now, they're practically giving natural gas away.

On the other hand, if one looks at cogeneration as one way to get rid of waste, it has one redeeming feature -- something wind does not have.

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Air Conditioning For The Indians As More Join The Middle Class

There's a great graphic at the link below.

The EIA reports:

Energy demand for space cooling is growing rapidly in India and around the world, driven by rising incomes and a natural preference for certain ambient air temperatures.

Cooling degree days (CDD) measure temperatures compared with a specific temperature or comfort level and are often used to measure potential weather-related energy consumption.

Four large cities in India are much larger than Los Angeles, California, and they also have more cooling degree days than Miami, Florida, one of the hottest metropolitan areas in the United States.

Currently, India has a relatively low penetration of air conditioning, while the United States is a much more saturated market. The latest data show that 87% of U.S. households have air-conditioning equipment. [320 million x 0.87 = 280 million.]

Similar data for India show just 2% of Indian households have air conditioning. [1.3 billion x 0.02 = 26 million.]

However, air conditioners are among the most prevalent purchases for the growing Indian middle class, with air conditioner sales increasing by 20% annually in recent years. About 3.3 million air conditioners were sold in India during the 2013-14 fiscal year, adding to the 25 million total units in the country.

Greater adoption of air conditioning has implications for electricity demand and reliability. During the summer of 2012, India's power generation was insufficient to meet electricity demand, leading to residential electricity service being cut off for 16 hours a day in some areas of the country and to a large-scale blackout affecting nearly 600 million people. 

In 2015, India experienced an intense and sustained heat wave, setting records in many parts of the country. For two weeks at the end of May, average temperatures for the country registered nearly 10 degrees Fahrenheit above historical norms, with heat indexes in Mumbai barely falling below 100 degrees Fahrenheit at night.

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