Number range CHAPTER

TALKING POINTS

BY

FRANK CAMPBELL,

Director, CANMET Energy Technology Centre-Ottawa

Welcome and Goals for the 3^rd^ Annual Microturbine Applications
Workshop

DATE 22^nd^ Jan 2003

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good morning and a very warm welcome to the 3^rd^ Annual Microturbine
Applications Workshop. Rob Brandon asked me to say a few words to set
the Workshop in context and outline what we hope to achieve in the
Workshop.

As you know the Canadian federal Government has ratified the Kyoto
Accord and now the hard work starts to meet the challenging targets that
Canada has accepted. As part of Canada's overall strategy, the CANMET
Energy Technology Centre has had a program promoting the utilization of
large scale combined heat and power for some years. Today's workshop
reflects a somewhat new direction within our CHP activities -- a
Distributed Power Generation program, led by Rob Brandon from our
laboratory in Ottawa.

The potential for distributed power generation, especially when combined
with heat recovery, is huge. Finland in 1998 produced 75% of its
thermally generated power using combined heat and power plants; Denmark
produced 67%. Both the US and Canada have a long way to go. The
technology showcased in this Workshop is one of the ways to
significantly improve the situation.

I am advised that when Rob Brandon suggested a year ago in Washington
that Calgary in mid-January would be a great place to hold the next
event there was some muttering south of the border. We heard about
inhospitable climate, freezing temperatures and the like. However, Anne
has secured a hotel right next to the airport so one can walk from the
plane to the workshop without even putting on one's parka. Not that it's
especially cold; it's been a pretty mild winter in Alberta this year. We
had hoped to allow you to experience some --30C temperatures but no such
luck. At the same time, we have to recognize that we have presenters and
attendees from warm climates such as Australia and Japan who might find
this a bit oppressive. Moreover, they may find it surprising that while
we clearly have high heating loads in the winter in Canada, most of
Canada, Calgary included, have hot summers (often \> +30C) with high
cooling demands. Because such extreme climates mean high utilization
hours, this is good news for combined heat and power.

And just to show you what is possible and so that you all leave Alberta
with the proper understanding of the role of modern technology in a cold
climate, on the site tour (Thursday) you will see red roses (which by
the way is the official symbol of Alberta) growing near Red Deer
Alberta, in the Morningside greenhouse that uses four microturbines to
provide power and heat.

Over four years ago CETC recognised that microturbines would require
effective heat recovery systems if they were to achieve their market and
environmental potential, and so we assisted Canadian companies who were
developing such concepts. This workshop features several presentations
that use Canadian fabricated components for heat recovery. Mariah Energy
Corporation, based here in Calgary, is a leader in the development and
commercialisation of this concept, and indeed the location of this
company is one of the reasons for the location of the workshop here in
Calgary.

Cost effective heat recovery systems are necessary for microturbine
technology to be environmentally appropriate. From the beginning, our
vision for microturbines was that of a packaged boiler system that
produced electricity. Another part of the CETC vision is that
microturbine CHP has to be installed with a minimum of engineering
overhead. Based on what we have seen to date we think that the technical
goal of reaching highly efficient heat recovery has been demonstrated,
but that much more work needs to be done on reducing the installation
and project transaction costs. I hope that we will see some good
examples of project implementation in the presentations so we can
anticipate a decline in installed project cost in the future.

I would see one of the goals of this workshop is to identify those
concepts, installations, project management, and operations that work
and those that do not and lead to high costs. I would ask presenters to
be honest and open when sharing those things that did not work as
expected, as it is probably more important to share the "lessons
learned" than to expound on those aspects that went well.

The novelty of microturbine technology has worn off and now the
challenge is to find those market niche areas that are high value but
are also large enough to make a reasonable business case to sceptical
customers. I might suggest that one of the goals of this workshop might
be to share ideas and concepts that would help all present - suppliers,
end users and consultants- discover these market niches and the
associated value propositions. I note that this afternoon's program is
on using waste fuels and agree that if the cost of fuel cleaning and
compression can be reduced that this is indeed a promising area. The
Japanese project from Meidensha in the area of using waste liquids in
microturbines is of special interest and I want to acknowledge all our
guests from overseas, Holland, Sweden, Germany. Perhaps next year we
should put International in the Workshop title.

We all need to co-operate and do more with limited funds, in particular
sharing current data and results so that funds are not spent duplicating
work whether it be within a country or internationally. The CETC
Distributed Generation Program has tried hard over the years to carry
out research and demonstration projects with many partners including
several Canadian provincial gas and electric utilities, several of whom
are giving presentations in this Workshop. CETC has just started a new
four year program in the area of thermally activated cooling which we
believe to be an important area that is very complementary to
Distributed Generation. We are working with partners in China and the UK
and although we do not have anything to report this year we hope to have
some results to report on next year to compare with the work being done
elsewhere in this important area.

I want to call your attention to the fact that this Workshop is being
supported by a number of organisations. NRCan recognises the support of
the workshop by Alberta's Climate Change Central and the Petroleum
Technology Alliance of Canada. The Canadian Distributed Resources
Association (CANDRA) is a gas and electric utility association that is
focussed on distributed resources and has been a supporter of this
Workshop from its inception. Finally I want to especially acknowledge
our co-organizer, the Office of Distributed Energy and Electric
Reliability of the US Department of Energy, in particular Debbie Haught.
Distributed Generation is one element of the work plan under the
Memorandum of Understanding that exists between Natural Resources Canada
and the US DOE. CETC has also had a great working relationship with Oak
Ridge National Laboratory in this area and Rob has asked me to thank
Dave Stinton of Oak Ridge and Stephanie Hamilton of Southern California
Edison who helped in the workshop organisation.

So enough from me. I can see from the program that this is going to be a
full day. I hope that you saw enough of the interesting posters last
night to whet your appetite and that you also take the time to
participate in the fascinating field trips. Enjoy the workshop. Thank
you