Combined Heat and Power (CHP) is an extremely efficient method of generating electrical power and heat energy, from a single source.
Most ‘off-grid’ electricity is produced using an engine driven gen-set, usually powered by diesel or gas fuel.
However a typical gen-set, producing electricity only, is often only around 30% efficient.
That’s because only around 31% of the fuel used is converted to electrical power. The remaining 69% is lost throughout the operating cycle.
The largest element of energy loss is heat – around 49% in total, so by recovering it, a valuable ‘free’ energy source is obtained, which also boosts the gen-sets overall efficiency to around 80%!
Heat exchangers are the most effective solution for recovering waste heat energy, as they convert it to hot water, which can be used for space heating, and hot water in residential or commercial buildings, industrial process heating, generating more power or even cooling via a chiller.
Heat can be recovered from virtually every area of the engine, including the exhaust stream, the cooling and lubrication systems, plus the induction air system.
Bowman manufacture a comprehensive range of CHP heat exchangers enabling customers to convert their gen-set into a highly efficient CHP system.